Topic: Has the acquisition of money and possessions replaced more meaningful ways of measuring our achievements?
Influenced by TV shows, magazine cover stories, and newspaper front pages, many people take money as the only way to decide whether a person is successful or not. However, apart from money, the contribution to the society should also be an indispensable factor. The selfless help Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa offer to those in need best demonstrates this.
Florence Nightingale, dubbed as The Lady with the Lamp was a renowned nurse for the pioneering nursing work in the Crimean War. Despite strong opposition from her mother and sister, she still decided to enter nursing. During the Crimean War in 1854, finding that soldiers were suffering from the poor hygiene condition, overcrowdedness of the hospital, indifference of the faculty, and no guarantee of plentiful food supply, she proposed the improvement in sanitation and increase in doctor number. Consequently, the death rate reduced sharply from 60% to 20%. However, much of her influence revealed after the war. She established the Nightingale Fund which received a large amount of generous donations. Those funds were largely used to set up several Nightingale Training School and raise the level of nursing in hospitals around the school. In addition, her contribution also inspired people to volunteer in nursing in the American Civil War in the 1860s. As a counselor in the Civil War, she presented valuable advice in medication. Due to her outstanding and selfless contribution to the well-being of the human, she was awarded the Royal Red Cross and the Order of Merit. Had she not served in the Crimean War, countless soldiers would have died. Had she not set up the Nightingale Fund and training schools, the modern nursing methods would not have been known for a long time.
As conscientious as Nightingale, Mother Teresa helped millions of poor people in the lowest level of the ladder of society. Even though she was a poor woman of little recognition at first, Mother Teresa began her charity work in 1948 with determination. After few years of meager life when she even needed to beg for her own living and withstand the loneness, her efforts caught attention of the Indian government which supported her to start the Missionaries of Charity whose mission was to care for the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the blind, and the lepers. In subsequent years, she opened several institutions to help more people. In Calcutta, a city in India, she opened the first hospice with the belief of beautiful death, which is for people who lived animals to die like angels. Three years after, she set up the Childrens Home of the Immaculate Heart for orphans and homeless children. In 1960s, her charity institutions dotted the India and by 1970s her charity work has touched dozens of countries around the world. Now, more than five thousand of volunteers are helping needy people in more than one hundred countries. Her conscience made her a respectful person and also stimulated others to pay attention to the people in despair.
Neither Nightingale nor Mother Teresa was millionaires, but their huge contribution to the world made them people of accomplishment. Thus, money and possessions do not necessarily indicate the achievement of people. Sometimes, even millionaires are not respected if they are indifferent to the charity work while average people can be respected by their selfless, nonprofit work in improving the well-being of the society.