Points to Ponder: If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of others you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.- Mister Rogers
Discovering the truth, about ourselves is a lifetime’s work, but it’s worth the effort. -Mister Rogers
Story Line:
The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.
The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing and it seems have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster”, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers-so many caring people in the world.
It’s very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It’s easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.
Mutual caring relationships require kindness and patience, tolerance, optimism, joy in other’s achievements, confidence in oneself, and the ability to give without undue thought of gain.
Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.
Reflection:
From Mr. Rogers’ speech at Emmy for Life Time Achievement Award*
"So many people have helped me to come here to this night. Some of you are here, some are far away and some are even in Heaven. All of us have special ones who loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are, those who cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life."
"10 seconds of silence. I'll watch the time. "
"Whomever you've been thinking about, how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they have made.”
*Entire speech is in the video at the top of this reflection. Thanks to Mary Abel, former colleague and a good friend, for introducing me to this video. It inspired me to write this Friday Reflection; coincidently a day before the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood with Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers is going to be released.