by Camilla Podini

– Delicious food, beautiful landscapes and warmy weather, then art, fashion and culture. What are you thinking about? If you asked it to a foreign person, he would yell: “ITALY of course!” but if you asked it to an Italian the answer might be different. That’s because tourists have a heavenly idea of our country, which is probably the most appreciated all around the world, while we keep complaining about it. Dreaming of a new life in a different place it’s in contrast with the opinion of those who visit our cities: they inevitably fall in love with Italy. How could views look so different? Are they crazy or are we blind?
Over our cultural cities and masterpieces, over our delicious food and over our imitated ‘made in Italy’, what distinguishes us is our ATTITUDE. Warm smile, friendly manners and genial intuitions look so special to people, except to us. Customs became obvious, unnoticed, useless. They can’t surprise us anymore. If it’s real that “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone”, the motivation can be summarised in “you knew what you had, you just never thought you would lose it.” so why don’t we try to change our mind and habits? What if we started being amazed by those little things? What if we started employing them in our lives? We would add a significance to our existence; we would better someone’s else life; we would guard our relationships, reach better results and live a happier life.

“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” Cit William Arthur Ward