Advice for Day 24: Have Good People

I have to make a quick tribute to my humbly genius journalism friend Elli Thompson, who is the only individual who can make me jump off the pity train and onto the optimistic wagon with nothing more than a cherry coke and an hour of sincerity.

We all want to be these people, these genuinely good and honest people like Elli, but we rarely can inspire such goodness in ourselves much less pass it on to others. But some of us are blessed to have such graces of human nature in our circle of friends; we must take some time to stop wishing we could be them and start being grateful that they put up with our shit.

As a rule of thumb, I think we should surround ourselves with people who make us feel good and people who make us want to be better. We spend way too much time wanting to change others to be the people we want them to be instead of appreciating those good friends we already have.



And while i am on my tribute kick let me make another shout out to the amazing and beautiful women I have bee privileged enough to call friends the past four years of college. I am blessed with having not just the goodness fairy as a friend, but also a whole slew of lovely ladies I like to call my entourage of kick ass. They may not have the cheeriest dispositions but they could drink Mary Poppins under the table and then give her a eloquent speech about politics or conservation or phycology or the Brewers. Combined these ladies hold all the characteristics I so respect: the gumption and guts, the humor and humility, the charisma and charm, the selflessness and sexiness.

At times when it is apparent that we are not the greatness we anticipated we were going to be, it is easy to forget are in the presence of future greatness. All of these ladies are going to be the future faces of what a power women looks like- and let me tell you, they look way better than Sarah Palin.