Forgetting something

Karen Kidd quotes a text from “The Very Ills Bro. Bertha Williams 33°”. Williams looks back at her time as leader of the American Federation of Human Rights. She attended one of ‘her’ lodges and did not like what she experienced. Her friend asked if she did not forget something.

Well […] as a matter of fact, you are forgetting several things. […] In the first place, you are not a Master of that Lodge; you are not even a member. You do not even know those people, and you have no responsibility for them. You are judging a situation by appearances, with very little background to it; you may be entirely wrong. But whether you are wrong or right, the main thing that you are forgetting is this: You are not in the work  because of what it may mean to somebody else. You are in it because of what it means to you. Now either you believe in it or you do not. If you do not believe in it – if you feel it has no intrinsic value, that is really not important to the H.O.A.T.F.M., that fundamentally it cannot and would not be of service to humanity – then get out of it. If you think it is important, get to work! Do whatever you have on your desk to do. Do it as perfectly as you can. This is your assignment – EVER – to mind your own business, whatever it may be, and let other people mind theirs. If every member would be content to do just that, then half of our problems would never occur … [sic] That is what I do – attend to my own assignment; that is what you have to dom.