In which I learn how to spell Czechoslovakia

I'm not sure why this thought came to mind the other day, but I was considering the Hippocratic Oath and how it says, "First, do no harm" (and then did the research and discovered that's not in the Hippocratic Oath at all, but rather in some other of Hippocrates work). There's more to it, of course, but I think that's a pretty good plan medically.  But that statement doesn't translate to your life as a whole.  You have to wonder if apathy, or contributing nothing positive by avoiding action, is just as bad as doing something harmful.  Ask the  kid who's bullied if his friends who watched but didn't participate were still people he'd consider friends. I'm betting he would find their inaction more injurious. So that brought to mind a quote I heard in a short student documentary about my new favorite hero, Sir Nicholas Winton. He says, "Don't be content in your life to just do no wrong.  Be prepared every day to try and do some good."

Here's why he gets to be the expert on the topic of good living:  Nicholas Winton was born a German Jew, but his family lived in England.  In 1938, just before WWII, the young clerk at the London Stock Exchange decided instead of going skiing for Christmas that he would go visit a friend in Prague who then asked for his help at camps that had been set up to manage the influx of Jewish refugees.  Bothered that no one had a plan for how to keep the children from certain death at the hands of Nazis, he began to arrange transport for Jewish children out of Czechoslovakia (just before Nazis invaded) and into England.  To set up both transportation and a foster family required money (50 pounds for each child which at the time was a small fortune) but he singlehandedly managed to procure this for 660+ desperate children and --HERE'S MY FAVORITE PART--he didn't speak of it again. Perhaps it was his despair over the fates of their parents, many of whom died in Auschwitz or perhaps it was despair over the last train he sent which departed the day the Nazis invaded and which included passenger cars full of children (250) who never arrived in Liverpool and were never heard from again.  In any case, his silence lasted until his wife discovered his scrapbook in the late 1980s and started contacting the foster families for whom he had addresses.  Eventually his work made the news and BBC's program called That's Life featured his work.  Trust me when I say your life will be improved if you watch this very short clip:

Sir Nicholas Winton has a statue at the Prague train station and they've done all kinds of documentaries and creative tributes to the humble man who is called Britain's Schindler.  He doesn't need or seem to really revel in all of the attention although he seemed to wonder why his clout wasn't enough to keep them from suspending his drivers license after a auto incident at age 97. He is 103 now.

The quote I mentioned earlier was his response to the question, "What's the one piece of advice you would offer today's young generation?"  I think Sir Winton's missive to just TRY to look for something good to contribute to the world each day is an appropriate response.  I think, from a man no more capable, intelligent, or fortunate than you and I, who quietly, but passionately, took care of some people around him, that it's a perfectly lovely response.