Mother Teresa

Was thinking of this poem of hers while I was out for my run last night. I am trying to run as much as possible in preparation for the Thanksgiving point half marathon that Mokey (Sarah E) and I are running at the end of the month. Lately I've been running a loop that includes the stairs that lead up to "Old Main" at the Utah State Campus. This poem kept popping into my head.
I think it was because I had just finished reading a section on interview questions in one of my text books for the recruitment and selection course I am taking. The question was, "If you could sit down and have a conversation with any celebrity, character from history or fiction, who would it be?

I think Mother Teresa would be the real life person I would like to meet and Anne of Green Gables would be the fictional one. Anyway, here is the poem that kept flashing into my mind:


People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

On the other hand, I would love to meet Florence Nightingale. I have read two biographies of her and I am smitten. One I read was in high-school when I was procrastinating an assignment and the other I read for an assignment I did in a Women's Studies class back in my Cap College days. Florence was an amazing woman who shunned having a pleasant and social life to establish nursing as a credible, honorable profession (nursing used to be synonymous with prostitution.) Her work saved thousands of lives and established a new field and a new realm for women to enter.