Kent M. Keith

Kent M. Keith (born in Brooklyn, NY), raised in Nebraska, California, Virginia, Rhode Island, and Hawaii, where he graduated from secondary school. Keith entered Harvard College to study government. After graduating from college, he read philosophy and politics at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar,[1] studied law at Harvard Law School, and earned an Ed. D. from the University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education.

Personal life

He lives with his wife, Elizabeth Keith, and three children in Honolulu, Hawaii.[2]

The Paradoxical Commandments

The Paradoxical Commandments is both a poem and a book by Keith, which he wrote as an undergraduate.[3] It is often found in slightly altered form.

In 1997, Keith learned that the poem "The Paradoxical Commandments" had hung on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta, India;[4] and, two decades after writing the original poem, Dr. Keith wrote a book of the same title expanding on the themes of the poem: Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy World. [5]

The Paradoxical Commandments

 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.

References

  1. ↑ http://bul.sagepub.com/content/55/356/66.abstract
  2. ↑ http://www.leadershipforwomen.com.au/interviews/Kent%20M.Keith.htm
  3. ↑ The Paradoxical Commandments by Dr. Kent M. Keith
  4. ↑ Brymer, George. (2005.) Vital Integrities: How Values-based Leaders Acquire And Preserve Their Credibility, All Square, Inc., p.198.
  5. ↑ (Hodder & Stoughton, 2002)