My daughter called the other night to share a story with me. She works, on weekends, as a waitress to help pay her way through school and to pick up skills she will be able to use, throughout her life, as she pursues her dream of performing in musical theater.

This last weekend she had a booth with a father and son and when she took them their ticket, they began arguing over who was going to pay the tab. After a little of this fussing, the younger of the two men took Caitlin aside and told her to forgive them but that it had been a hard week. This man’s mother, the older man’s wife had passed earlier in the week, and they were still feeling the loss.

My daughter paid for the older man’s meal out of her tips and wrote a note on the ticket which said something like this: “This meal is on me. I hope you have brighter days ahead.” Then she gave the ticket to the younger man.

She felt good about that. It wasn’t that much money and it seemed to brighten the mood of the two men.

Within two hours an unrelated customer left her a $10.00 dollar tip on a $20.00 bill. She typically averages just about twenty percent of the ticket.

She said even when I deduct the meal I paid for, I still received more tip than I ordinarily would have received. “You just cannot out give the Universe” she added.

I was tickled that she shared this story with me. I have taught my children that the Universe always offers its abundance, as we give of ours. In the same way, we never get away with cheating others. The Universe always mirrors our consciousness.

In my daughter’s act of kindness, she wasn’t looking for anything in return. She is just a beautiful soul who realizes that being kind is its own reward. Nonetheless, she found it remarkable that the Universe repaid her kindness, so quickly. She had a smile in her voice I could hear over the phone.

Whenever we choose love, whenever we choose kindness, it is always its own reward, even if we never notice that the Universe responds in like kind. Had my daughter given in the hopes of receiving something in return, her motivation would have been askew. She received the blessing that accompanies the choice of kindness, simply in the giving. The demonstration, through the generosity of the later customer, was just dessert.

It is a Truth that we can never out-give the Universe. Every choice of kindness raises our collective consciousness and manifests itself as a kinder humanity whether we, personally, see the result or not.