Hi,
Good morning! It’s Saturday again. And, the 50th Saturday story comes to you. It has been a pleasure preparing the stories and mailing them to you and also posting on my blog. It has helped me learn so much in the process. The stories I share with you have now become a regular part of my speeches too helping me enthral my audience better. You have been so kind and nice to be on my mailing list, to mail me your occasional comments, and also to advise me to add your friends and relatives to the list. Thank you very much for your kind encouragement. This week, I would like to share with you a true story that demonstrates power of the words we speak of others...the story of Eklund Mark.....
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Story of Eklund Mark, the Former Catholic School Student Who Died in Vietnam
An excerpt from the article, “All Good Things” by Sister Helen P. Mrosla
Sister Helen Mrosla was a maths teacher at St Mary’s School in Morris, Minnesota. In 1965, one Friday she had her class of 34 students including Eklund Mark do an interesting exercise. She asked each student to take a sheet of paper, write the names of all other students on it, and also to think the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. That Saturday, she wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed on it what everyone else had said about that individual. Next Monday, she gave each student his or her list.
Several years later, the teacher got a word that Mark Eklund had died in Vietnam and she was asked to attend his funeral. There, one of the soldiers asked her, “Are you Mark’s math teacher? He talked about you a lot.” Before she left the place, Mark’s father and mother met her. James Eklund, his father, pulled out gently from the wallet used by Mark two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times, and said, “We want to show you something. They found this with Mark always. We thought you might recognize it.” She immediately know that the papers were the ones on which she listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”
A few of Mark’s classmates who attended the funeral also met her. They all said that they too saved their lists. While one said that he kept it in the top drawer of his desk at home, others said they kept it in wedding album, diary, pocketbook, etc., One of them took out her wallet and showed her worn and fizzled list and said, “I carry this with me at all times.”
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How nice it is to read good things about what people have to say about us! I must tell you I have a habit of storing all the messages of appreciation and praise I receive in a folder on my computer, “Good ones”. I do take time to take a look at them once in a while. And that is highly inspiring for me to keep moving forward and staying committed to the chosen goal in life. I also keep advising my children and others to open a note book and call it, “Book of good ones” and to write in it whenever they receive a pat on the back, or whenever they perform well and do something they feel proud of. It is always a right time to say a genuine compliment to others at home or in office.
The Best for you always,
With love and regards,
Siva
value4value@gmail.com
Good morning! It’s Saturday again. And, the 50th Saturday story comes to you. It has been a pleasure preparing the stories and mailing them to you and also posting on my blog. It has helped me learn so much in the process. The stories I share with you have now become a regular part of my speeches too helping me enthral my audience better. You have been so kind and nice to be on my mailing list, to mail me your occasional comments, and also to advise me to add your friends and relatives to the list. Thank you very much for your kind encouragement. This week, I would like to share with you a true story that demonstrates power of the words we speak of others...the story of Eklund Mark.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story of Eklund Mark, the Former Catholic School Student Who Died in Vietnam
An excerpt from the article, “All Good Things” by Sister Helen P. Mrosla
Sister Helen Mrosla was a maths teacher at St Mary’s School in Morris, Minnesota. In 1965, one Friday she had her class of 34 students including Eklund Mark do an interesting exercise. She asked each student to take a sheet of paper, write the names of all other students on it, and also to think the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. That Saturday, she wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed on it what everyone else had said about that individual. Next Monday, she gave each student his or her list.
Several years later, the teacher got a word that Mark Eklund had died in Vietnam and she was asked to attend his funeral. There, one of the soldiers asked her, “Are you Mark’s math teacher? He talked about you a lot.” Before she left the place, Mark’s father and mother met her. James Eklund, his father, pulled out gently from the wallet used by Mark two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times, and said, “We want to show you something. They found this with Mark always. We thought you might recognize it.” She immediately know that the papers were the ones on which she listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him. “Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.”
A few of Mark’s classmates who attended the funeral also met her. They all said that they too saved their lists. While one said that he kept it in the top drawer of his desk at home, others said they kept it in wedding album, diary, pocketbook, etc., One of them took out her wallet and showed her worn and fizzled list and said, “I carry this with me at all times.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How nice it is to read good things about what people have to say about us! I must tell you I have a habit of storing all the messages of appreciation and praise I receive in a folder on my computer, “Good ones”. I do take time to take a look at them once in a while. And that is highly inspiring for me to keep moving forward and staying committed to the chosen goal in life. I also keep advising my children and others to open a note book and call it, “Book of good ones” and to write in it whenever they receive a pat on the back, or whenever they perform well and do something they feel proud of. It is always a right time to say a genuine compliment to others at home or in office.
The Best for you always,
With love and regards,
Siva
value4value@gmail.com
1 comment:
And therefore, the morale of the story is that the self judgement about one's personality is of no use either to yourself or to the society at large. Keep track of the perceptions of your immediate neighbourhood about your personality and make positive ammendments if necessary.
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