 December,
2003
 
Do it Anyway:
The
Handbook for Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy
World
People are illogical, unreasonable,
and self-centered. Love them anyway.”
Nearly everyone who reads spiritual
books has heard, at one time or another, of this list of seemingly
impossible, but somehow
deeply inspirational injunctions. Known as “Anyway” or “The
Paradoxical Commandments,” Kent M. Keith’s list—for
a time wrongly attributed to Mother Teresa, as she kept the list
on her wall in Calcutta—has inspired countless people through
the years.
“
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed over-night. Build
anyway.” Written by Keith while an undergraduate student
at Harvard, as part of a booklet for student leaders, the list
of maxims found their way around the world, and have been used
in speeches, advice columns, and numerous other venues.
In 2002, Keith published Anyway: The
Paradoxical Command-ments: Finding Personal Meaning in a Crazy
World. His latest book, Do
It Anyway, contains personal stories from people from all walks
of life who have taken these simple principles to heart, and
tried to live their message. The book also contains questions
and exercises, for readers who wish to incorporate these principles
in their own lives.
“
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked
in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.” Though
he later went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, attorney, and university
president, “Anyway” may turn out to be Kent Keith’s
finest legacy.
— Jan Suzukawa
Get out. Do good.” That is the
motto of Volunteer Match, a highly commendable organization
that seeks to join the giver
to the receiver, the helper to the needy. Any number of people
would like to know how they can best serve others, particularly
in this holiday season; and how they can contribute what they
know to those who know less and, perhaps most important, where
to find them.
If ever the Internet deserves praise,
this site stands as proof of it. If you wish to locate volunteer
organizations near you,
simply enter your zip code and voila! you have a list of organizations,
small and large, with a wide variety of needs. I punched in my
own zip code and found some twenty local groups needing help.
They ranged from a volunteer organization needing a few hours
of repair work, to a children’s advocate assistant. Not
able to travel far? You can find volunteer possibilities within
a radius of five miles—or widen your search to ten, twenty,
or sixty miles. Another menu will let you select the type of
volunteering you want. Animals, the disabled, the environment,
children and youth, the homeless, and housing are some of the
categories.
Volunteer Match has also formed partnerships
with some of the world’s major corporations that include
Microsoft, Edison, and Merrill Lynch, to name only a few. If
they wish, employees
can serve as volunteers through their partnership companies,
benefiting both the company and the employee, as well as so many
others.
The overriding message of this impressive
site is profoundly simple: “’Tis far better to
give than to receive.” — Cliff
Johnson
Books by Ernest Holmes
on the Science of Mind
“The
Science of Mind”
“How
to Use the Science of Mind”
“What
Religious Science Teaches”
“365
Science of Mind: A Year of Daily Wisdom”
“The
Basic Ideas of Science of Mind”
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