Margaret Mercer
Every now and then I really enjoy finding age old writings from the past. I was in the process of writing an article about the Dallas Women’s Foundation and was researching philanthropy, when I came across Margaret Mercer, born in 1791 in Annapolis.
Mercer was a philanthropist, but she as also a teacher of morals and ethics. She encourages us all to cultivate our giving, but more so to develop our relations with “all mankind without exception”.
This is very in tune with my core belief that we must honor each and every human being, that we are all equal, and that we all have potential.
With a spirit of oneness, we allow peace to overtake our entire world. We know longer divide between us and them.
Or, as I happened to recently write elsewhere:
Labeling someone as our enemy is akin to holding them to our belief that they can never change. It is in reality, more about us than them. It about us holding ourselves in a rigid state of belief, rather than being open to the belief that they may someday change. Let us put faith in the potential of others, and in this same way, we put faith in our own potential to grow, which we know we innately have.
As Mercer says, our happiness is tied in-separately with our duties. In other words, if we are to be happy and full of joy, we must learn to serve others in our work and in our lives.
The bottom line is we are wired to be happy and charitable at the same time. They go together. We must have hearts of beneficence as Mercer says, to lead us to our joy.
References
Mercer, Margaret, 1841. “On cultivating the esteem, affection and friendship of mankind”, in, Popular lectures on ethics, or moral obligation, unknown publisher. Retrieved from Ebsco database, September 2010.