Categories: famous quotes
singlikewildflowers
Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!
sing like wildflowers 
I always liked Ernest Hemingway quotes – very true!
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His writings go right to the heart of the matter. These writers…they’re too good!!
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Did you get my reply to Ellis for the hypothetical bully? I wished I had sent along these words of wisdom from Mother Teresa, especially the first line, but that is hard to do … I know I hated the people who bullied me:
The version found written on the wall in Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta:
“Do It Anyway”
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 version is credited to Mother Teresa]
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Love it…thank you for sharing Mother Teresa’s wisdom with us and for the faith perspective. I’ll sure to let Ellis read it. It’s edified me.
Ellis read your previous comment on the bully question and she was shocked to hear that even your teacher was mean to you. It gave her perspective that bullies come in all shapes and sizes and a person can be bullied for any reason. So sad, right?!
Thankfully, she hasn’t been outright bullied over her voice, but there’s been innocent comments made from small kids who are not tactful about asking sensitive questions. Ellis tells me afterwards and we talk about it, like how people don’t know her voice was affected by surgery and that other people have no idea. Kids who ask are curious, thankfully, we haven’t had any vicious kinds of comments. She was asked once, “why is your voice weird?” But there’s always the fear that someone will make a mean comment. Your response to it was great; it mirrors the question right back to whoever asked in the first place.
Thank you Linda for your kind and thoughtful response!
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You’re welcome Esther … I do understand kids are curious, but then again, you wonder why their parents never raised them to not ask questions like “why are you different?” If we all had the same voice, how boring life would be.
I hate bullying because I lived through it and you/I have discussed several times how strictly we were raised … strict parents, or only child, doesn’t matter. I could not tell my father – he had a short fuse and I knew he would be explosive, which, when my teacher accused me of making nasty calls to her home on Easter Sunday night and was ready to paddle me (she paddled me almost daily), that I had enough, called my parents and they came to the school. And my father exploded – it wasn’t pretty. My mom didn’t drive and because of various orthopedic/medical issues, she could not walk to the school, but they came together. And I was punished for not telling them what happened (like that was fair)!
Kids are cruel and I will tell you something else, this horrible nightmare school shooting in Texas by this 18-year old kid … well he was a high school dropout and that was because he had a lisp and kids taunted him about it. Wrong, wrong to do this! They’ve not made a lot about that fact about the shooter’s lisp and I’m surprised he did not take his AR-15 to shoot the kids that taunted him.
We had the Oxford High School shooting here, a 15-year-old who had issues in the past, people talked about it … it is sad and yes, hindsight is 20/20, but still. He was rebuffed by classmates, a girl one time – he looked for those kids with gun in hand. The world is scary.
I wanted to ensure Ellis saw the original comment and also the Mother Teresa words, which, as difficult as it is sometimes, you have to be the bigger person or simply “take the high road” … do people use that expression anymore? Always take the high road – sigh.
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That’s child abuse from the teacher. I’m sorry you had a terrible experience like that in early childhood. It must’ve been terrifying to go to school everyday and to be fearful of a potential paddling. How does a kid do any learning in that kind of situation. And how unfair to be blamed by your father. Man, tough growing up. Linda, you are a brave soul to have endured those taunts from bullies and to be able to talk about it now. I despise bullies too. I had my fill of bullies too and school was hell for me.
I read about the Texas shooting and have been staying on top of the news about the tragedy. Unbelievable and pure evil. Yes, I remember the Oxford shooting too. The world has gone mad with people killing each other senselessly. How is mass shooting a thing?!
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Your last line Esther – “How is mass shooting a thing?” On the last newscast I listened to they said there have been 14 mass shootings in the U.S. since the Texas shooting. I thought “no way – where have I been.” They count a mass shooting as more than four people in the same setting, even if only wounded, is a mass shooting. That’s terrible. The world is unstable – that’s all I can say. Walking out of the house anymore you don’t know if you’ll come home. I get angry as I think of retirement (not imminent, but not that far off) and a world where I might have enjoyed more things without needing to look at my watch and what happens … a world of worries over climate change, crime and disease. Bullying was terrible – I should have told my mom who was strict but would have understood and not blamed me. My father was a racist – German and thought everyone who was not German was inferior. How he and my mom got together I’ll never know and they didn’t have me for three years, so that wasn’t the reason.
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Thanks for sharing how a mass shooting is defined. It’s scary how many of them we’ve had in the past month. People are losing their dang minds and tempers and lives. Sad how we live with his fear. You never know when a psychopath is gonna strike. Tragic.
I’m so glad you didn’t get influenced by your father. Love is blind? Thank goodness you had an understanding and loving mother to see you through the growing pains. It couldn’t have been easy growing up with a close minded father and another parent with chronic illness. Linda, thank goodness you weathered those storms and took care of your mother in her later years. That’s inspirational!
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I agree Esther and I am wondering if California has the issues like are happening in Michigan, especially the Detroit area. We have all these freeway shootings and the Michigan State Police say that the newest thing is people have fights with friends and/or family members and know that person’s routine and they hunt for them on the expressway, or a service ramp to the expressway and shoot them, usually with success, but sometimes not success, the person lives and can identify the shooter – yes, the world is crazy and there is no pleasure in driving anywhere anymore and as a person who really didn’t do any expressway driving, that’s not a big deal for me (though it limits where I go), but … it is as if they (the crazies) are encroaching more and more to where I go on a routine basis … that is scary.
Yes, it might have been my mom being willing to leave a bad environment (my grandfather was nothing special and had a dirty mouth and disparaged her all the time), so maybe it was that, but I often thought to myself … surely in three years, some of his temperament and bad ways should have been evident? Thank you for your kind words Evelyn – living with these factors made me wise beyond my years and with no siblings, just as in your case, you have a lot of time to analyze what is going on, try to blaze new little trails forth … didn’t always work.
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