Posted by Mrs. Silveira, 1st Grade
People are often unreasonable, irrational, 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 unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.
This comes from Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. I’ve been trying to remind myself of these words lately, perhaps a bit more simplified. For example, when 4 groups of people keep cutting you in the chairlift line, be kind anyway. When your husband hops in the shower (well stands in it, much safer) at 5:57 even though you use it everyday at 6:00, be kind anyway. When a driver in front of you is erratic with their speed (ok, I really mean too slow), be kind anyway.
I’ve noticed that when I am being grumpy, it is because I am putting my needs ahead of someone else’s. Then I realized that many people seem grumpier than I am. And, if you think about it, our society has become a me, me, me society. A while back, I listened to a study that analyzed the use of words in books over the last century. Specifically, they focused on words that referred to the individual, for example I, me, my, alone, etc. and compared them with words referring to the group or others such as you, them, others. There was a clear decrease in the frequency of “group type” words and an increase in the number of“individual type” words. I think this is pretty telling in terms of where we are headed as a society. Do we want to head there?
It was Dr. Seuss’ birthday on March 2, so we have been reading his books in our first grade classroom. One child selected the Butter Battle Book. The Yooks and the Zooks argue over whether your bread should be butter side up or butter side down. They threaten each other at the wall that divides them with progressively scarier weapons. Sure enough, a first grader had quite the insight. When we were in the middle talking about what was going to happen next, she said, “Why don’t they just help each other and be nice?” That would have ended the battle. Unfortunately in the book, and in real life, the battle sometimes never really ends.
Now, take time and imagine a world where everyone puts others first and tries to be kind anyway. What a wonderful world this would be. At least I think we would all be a bit happier.
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