At the beginning of 2018, I shared a heartfelt plea with you for Hearts in Healthcare, in the hope that it would inspire you to work, with so many others, towards a truly human centred health care, in which compassion, a sense of awe and an eye for human beings’ true needs are at the heart of what we do. To keep heart in this process, I would like to share something else with you at the beginning of 2019.
In 1968, a young student called Kent Keith wrote the booklet The Silent Revolution. He hoped to inspire young student leaders, who often got discouraged or even embittered about trying to do the right thing. Keith challenges us to shift our paradigma towards doing the right things for the right reasons. He states that doing things for our own sake, will never give us the satisfaction we hope for, while doing your work because you know it is right and you care about the people you want to help, does. “You do things because they are valid in themselves, not because they are calculated to bring so many votes and so much glory.”
We all know however, that this can be very hard. As birth care professionals, we are faced with forces that drain and exhaust us on a daily basis. However, Keith states, “you have to keep striving, no matter what, because if you don’t, many of the things that need to be done in our world will never get done”. In order to be able to do this, regardless of the appreciation of others, we might turn to Keiths 10 Paradoxical Commandments. They can help us to recalibrate our hearts and minds and refocus on what we feel called to be and to do. Doing the right things for the right reasons will give you a sense of meaning, significance and eventually happiness. May this happiness be yours in 2019. Happy New Year!
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.
© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001
Resource
Website Kent M. Keith. See: http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/