When i was a little girl, about nine years old, living in Bay Village, Ohio, I came home from a birthday party and burst into tears. “What’s wrong?” my mother asked.

“Suzy Wright doesn’t like me!” I said.

“How do you know?”

“Because everyone told me she doesn’t,” I sobbed.

“Hmm,” my mother said. After a minute or two, she asked me, “Darling, can you think of anything that absolutely everyone in the world likes?” I just looked at her. “Because I can think of only one thing,” she said, “and that’s water. Because it has no taste. Do you want to be like water?”

I thought for a minute. “I guess not,” I said.

“Good,” my mother said. “I didn’t think so.”

“Maybe I’ll be like hot chocolate or Coca-Cola — or, I know, lemonade!”

“Exactly. Now you’ve got it.”

My mom was terrific and very wise, and I wish I could say I’ve always lived by her words, but I haven’t. Sometimes I’ve forgotten; sometimes I’ve gotten caught up in the need to be everybody’s everything, all the time. To be universally appealing. (Like type O blood. Everyone can use it.) But think about it — who is absolutely loved by everyone? It’s pretty tough to find someone. Look at some of the people who really stand out in our society: Donald Trump, Madonna, Cher, Tom Cruise, Katie Couric, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Some people love ’em; some people hate ’em. There have always been people like that. Gloria Steinem always stood apart. Looking further back, so did Eleanor Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. Most of these people are, or were, controversial. And I doubt any of them would have lasted very long if they had worried about being universally liked. Although vastly different, they all have one thing in common: They knew from the outset that if enough people love you, the ones who don’t, don’t matter.