You’ve heard of Florence Nightingale. But did you know that she was born to wealth & socially prominence in London, England? This brilliant young girl from a socially prominent, wealthy family wrote in her diary in 1851 at the age of thirty-one, “I see nothing that I desire today, other than death.” She came close to burning out. But she renewed herself. How? She reviewed her life. Money, social position didn’t do anything for her. Then she examined the possibilities. If only she could help people. She wanted to be a nurse. Her mother & father said that such a status was beneath their dignity. But she named the price. She was willing to be ostracized by her parents & society. She elected to be a nurse.Her mother wrote, “We are two ducks, my husband & I, & we’ve given birth to a wild swan.” But Florence Nightingale’s biographer said, “The mother was so wrong, for Florence was not a wild swan but an eagle.” The Crimean War broke out. Florence chose to go. “Possessed by demons,” her family said. “Victim of a nervous breakdown.” She was ostracized, criticized, considered insane. But for three years she waited & worked among the dying men, their blood, their amputated legs. She came home after three years later in 1859, & she wrote & published notes on how hospitals should be operated. And she changed hospitals.
I read this story for the time in the book ‘Tough times never last but tough people do’ by Robert H. Schuller. He tells you about positive thinking in a way that he can convince almost anyone. Sadly, I’ve noticed that if someone happens to be different in a family…instead of accepting that individual, family members themselves create innumerable problems.
And if anyone happens to be different, the world also labels him/her as eccentric. Now eccentric cannot be the right word. One may not follow conventions, but that doesn’t make the person eccentric. Following the norms & doing the stuff that everyone does can be so annoying. In fact, more than annoying, it’s not even possible to accommodate, in the 1st place. Just because billions of people are comfortable with a thing or idea…it doesn’t mean everyone on this planet could follow it blindly.
So from the example of Florence Nightingale, one thing is evident – the world is still rotten even though it’s 2009. We haven’t come a long way. We are still there. And that is bad news. People are still being ostracized & treated badly for being different, as if it’s a crime! Whereas the same people are shit scared if a real criminal is in the vicinity…That’s how brave they all are.
Nadira Rahman
