The Paradoxical Commandments

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Dr. Kent M. Keith


People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

I usually don't share things that other people wrote or said because: 1) It's something that you could easily find on your own were you interested and 2) My ego doesn't permit me of admitting that anyone else can say anything important or profound. However, every once and a while I feel the urge to share something I think is very important. Today is one of those times and that something is the paradoxical commandments. I read this a long time ago and it just sounded so right that I could never forget it.

If you've read any of my previous posts then you know how cynical, jaded, and generally angry I almost always am. I believe that we are just a bunch of hairless apes walking on a ball of shit floating in space. I believe that any meaning we try to ascribe to our existence is ultimately just us projecting our desires to feel special. I believe that, in the end, it won't matter if you lived your life in slimy decadence or pious restraint. However, I also believe that the world is filled with enough suffering and I refuse to add to it, furthermore, I believe that if it is within my power to improve the lives of anyone that I should do it. Not because I expect to be rewarded in this life or in some magical afterlife but just because it is the right thing to do.

Just because the world sucks it doesn't mean we have to be bastards. Kindness doesn't have to be rewarded, in fact it shouldn't be, it cheapens it. In closing, I think I quote the movie Se7en: "Ernest Hemingway once wrote that the Earth is a fine place and is worth fighting for. I agree with the second part."