All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum Page B
Authors: Robert Fulghum
Tags: Fiction
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Servant of the poor and sick and dying. To her, the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was given the longest standing ovation in the history of the prize.
No president or king or general or scientist or pope or banker or merchant or cartel or oil company or ayatollah holds the key to as much power as she had. None is as rich. For hers was the invincible weapon against the evils of this earth: the caring heart. And hers were the everlasting riches of this life: the wealth of the compassionate spirit.
I would not do what she did or the way she did it. But her presence on the stage of the world dares me to explain just what the hell I
will
do, then, and
how
, and
when
.
Several years after she won the Nobel Prize, when I was attending a grand conference of quantum physicists and religious mystics at the Oberoi Towers Hotel in Bombay, I saw her in person. Standing by the door at the rear of the hall, I sensed a presence beside me. And there she was. Alone. This tiny woman had come to speak to the conference as its guest.
She strode to the rostrum and changed the agenda of the conference from intellectual inquiry to moral activism. She said, in a firm voice to the awed assembly: “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
The contradictions of her life and faith were nothing compared to my own. And while I wrestle with frustration about the impotence of the individual, she went right on affecting the world. While I
wish
for more power and resources, she
used
her power and resources to do what she could do at the moment. Gandhi would have approved. He had some strange ways and habits of his own. But he did what he did.
Mother Teresa disturbed me and inspired me. And still does.
What did she have that I do not?
If ever there is truly peace on earth, goodwill to men, it will be because of women like Mother Teresa. In watching the millions of women marching in the streets of the world this winter, I was reminded that peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away! You begin with what you have, where you are, and pass it on.
Mother Teresa is dead now, of course.
Would you have wanted me to omit this essay because she’s gone?
Or leave it out because I can’t settle my own mind about Me and Them and Us?
That’s the point, isn’t it?
What she was, stood for, is not out of date or worn out.
It lives on as a challenge.
Not in her. In me. In you. In us.
C ENSUS
T HERE IS A clay tablet in the British Museum that’s dated about 3800 B.C. It’s Babylonian—a census report—a people count—to determine tax revenues. The Egyptians and the Romans conducted census counts. And there’s William the Conqueror’s famous Domesday Book, compiled in England in 1085. This need to know how many of us there are is old.
In our own country, the census dates from 1790. Counting people tells some interesting things. Especially since computers enable us to extrapolate trends into the future. Take this, for example: If the population of the earth were to increase at the present rate indefinitely, by A.D. 3530 the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the earth; and by A.D. 6826, the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the known universe.
It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? That’s a lot of meat.
Or consider this one: The total population of the earth at the time of Julius Caesar was 150 million. The population
increase
in two years on earth today is 150 million.
Or bring it down into a smaller chunk: In the time it takes you to read this, about 500 people will die and about 680 people will be born. That’s about two minutes’ worth of life and death.
The statisticians figure that about 70 billion people have been born so far. And as I said, there’s no telling how many more there will be, but it looks like a lot. And yet—and here comes the statistic of
She was given the longest standing ovation in the history of the prize.
No president or king or general or scientist or pope or banker or merchant or cartel or oil company or ayatollah holds the key to as much power as she had. None is as rich. For hers was the invincible weapon against the evils of this earth: the caring heart. And hers were the everlasting riches of this life: the wealth of the compassionate spirit.
I would not do what she did or the way she did it. But her presence on the stage of the world dares me to explain just what the hell I
will
do, then, and
how
, and
when
.
Several years after she won the Nobel Prize, when I was attending a grand conference of quantum physicists and religious mystics at the Oberoi Towers Hotel in Bombay, I saw her in person. Standing by the door at the rear of the hall, I sensed a presence beside me. And there she was. Alone. This tiny woman had come to speak to the conference as its guest.
She strode to the rostrum and changed the agenda of the conference from intellectual inquiry to moral activism. She said, in a firm voice to the awed assembly: “We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”
The contradictions of her life and faith were nothing compared to my own. And while I wrestle with frustration about the impotence of the individual, she went right on affecting the world. While I
wish
for more power and resources, she
used
her power and resources to do what she could do at the moment. Gandhi would have approved. He had some strange ways and habits of his own. But he did what he did.
Mother Teresa disturbed me and inspired me. And still does.
What did she have that I do not?
If ever there is truly peace on earth, goodwill to men, it will be because of women like Mother Teresa. In watching the millions of women marching in the streets of the world this winter, I was reminded that peace is not something you wish for; it’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away! You begin with what you have, where you are, and pass it on.
Mother Teresa is dead now, of course.
Would you have wanted me to omit this essay because she’s gone?
Or leave it out because I can’t settle my own mind about Me and Them and Us?
That’s the point, isn’t it?
What she was, stood for, is not out of date or worn out.
It lives on as a challenge.
Not in her. In me. In you. In us.
C ENSUS
T HERE IS A clay tablet in the British Museum that’s dated about 3800 B.C. It’s Babylonian—a census report—a people count—to determine tax revenues. The Egyptians and the Romans conducted census counts. And there’s William the Conqueror’s famous Domesday Book, compiled in England in 1085. This need to know how many of us there are is old.
In our own country, the census dates from 1790. Counting people tells some interesting things. Especially since computers enable us to extrapolate trends into the future. Take this, for example: If the population of the earth were to increase at the present rate indefinitely, by A.D. 3530 the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the earth; and by A.D. 6826, the total mass of human flesh and blood would equal the mass of the known universe.
It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? That’s a lot of meat.
Or consider this one: The total population of the earth at the time of Julius Caesar was 150 million. The population
increase
in two years on earth today is 150 million.
Or bring it down into a smaller chunk: In the time it takes you to read this, about 500 people will die and about 680 people will be born. That’s about two minutes’ worth of life and death.
The statisticians figure that about 70 billion people have been born so far. And as I said, there’s no telling how many more there will be, but it looks like a lot. And yet—and here comes the statistic of
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