Happy New Year to all! Welcome to 2010! 
It has been, from time immemorial, a tradition for people to set goals for themselves and to declare resolutions that they hope to maintain for the coming year. A typical habit, but is now more of a tradition, has been to break these resolutions at some point in the year (generally around February). I hope to at least rise above my natural state of laziness and maintain my goals and resolutions for the entire year of 2010 if not longer.
What do I want to make my resolution for 2010? As cliché as it sounds, I really want to do the best I can – not just academically, but overall – and try to be the best person that I can be. As broad of a resolution as this is, when I think of ways that I could make myself better, I am reminded of one of my best friend’s favourite poems, Mother Teresa’s version of Dr. Kent M. Keith’s ‘The Paradoxical Commandments’. I hope to make this not just my resolution, but my theme and mantra for this coming year.
Anyway
People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
Happy New Year to the Swadharma family and all its readers! I sincerely hope that this new year brings happiness and success to all!
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I used to have this poem written out and up on my wall as a constant reminder that achieving such detachment from praise is my eventual goal — it helped me a lot last year, especially when I got carried away by things and strayed from that goal. I gave it away to a friend this summer…Reading this post, I realized that I never made a replacement — so, now I have one more thing on my to do list before I head back to school! If you want to stick to your goal, maybe you could try something like that too — put up your goal somewhere where you’ll see it every day, so you are constantly reminded of your goal and motivated to work towards it even when the going is tough.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Happy New Year!
This is a very “noble” (in the traditional sense of the word, at least) poem, but the reason that Keith gives (that ultimately, “it’s between your God and you”) is rather frail. As someone who is a very wishy-washy agnostic, I’d hope that there is a Greater (or if you’d like, more reasonable) explanation for all the sacrifices that Keith expects us to make.
I agree, Sid — I’ve never felt like I should be a good person because some all-powerful being is watching over and judging my actions…I guess I always thought of Keith’s “God” as my own conscience — I have a strong vision of what qualities I view to be ideal (which I guess has been strongly influenced by Hindu saints and other role models) — and so when the poem says “it is between you and your God,” I tend not to see it as between myself and some external overseer, but rather as a self-judgement — comparing my present self with my ideal.
Oh — I just realized that I didn’t really explain why I see those sacrifices as reasonable. The reason I see these sorts of qualities as Higher (and therefore, as a reasonable goal) is that these qualities — truthfulness, sincerity, detachment, selflessness — all seem to be common among all of the great personalities I can think of. Every saint, historical figure, or personal role model whom I can think of practices those qualities — and those “sacrifices” seem to form the foundation, the basis for why such personalities were able to achieve such greatness.
And so, as a person who wants perfection as her goal, I think it is reasonable to set these seemingly impractical, potentially unreachable, goals as my ideal.
Thank you for clearing that up! That makes sense, although I’m mildly bewildered:
I cannot begin to express how problematic I find the notion that greatness determines how virtuous a given act is.
The root of the problem is, of course, what constitutes “greatness.” That is an entirely different discussion, but let it suffice to say that people value very very bizarre things. Once again, let me allude to an extremely frivolous example. Yes, a fan site for serial killers.
My point being:
These role models that you’ve chosen are your choices, and your choices only. In a very similar manner, the qualities that you label “good” are arbitrarily determined — influenced by your family, friends, religion, etc, no doubt — but arbitrary nonetheless. Your effort to achieve “perfection,” presumably defined as the state that embodies all such qualities, is yet again, admirable but yours alone.
So, the question is (thanks, Bill Kowalsky!):
Sonali’s argument holds for her. However, in virtue of what might the poem’s commands obtain normative force? That is, how might it motivate us? Why should we believe it? How might those ethical claims obtain motivating force?
Thoughts?
What takes true strength is infusing the quest for perfection with conviction, with a meaning that reduces the cold void of arbitrariness and fills that void in the hearts of others. When the warmth of this conviction spreads from one heart to those nearby, that is when the quest for perfection transcends the individual and attains normative force. That is what great individuals do — they are normative force, in the flesh.
What did Gandhi do? He faced the void of arbitrariness and chose to infuse the quest for moral perfection with a conviction that gave meaningfulness to the wounds India sustained in the name of Swaraj. Did he have a reason for this? Maybe. Did he need to? No.
What did Mother Teresa do? She faced the void of arbitrariness and chose to infuse the quest for moral perfection in God’s most holy name with a conviction that gave meaningfulness to serving lepers and society’s downtrodden. Did she have a reason for this? Maybe. Did she need to? No.
What did Jesus do? He faced the void of arbitrariness, preached the gospel and was crucified for it. He bore upon his bleeding shoulders not just the burden of humanity’s sins, but the inherent meaninglessness of life. He took that meaninglessness, that arbitrariness, upon himself, infused it with his conviction, and fed it through sermons and parables to the spiritually starved souls of the world. Did he have a reason for this? Maybe. Did he need to? No.
My quest for perfection is not mine alone, because of its potential to help others, to fill that void of meaninglessness in others’ hearts through a conviction of meaning in my own. That is what I admire in the great — they answer the demand for a reason with nothing but the silence of their actions.
PS: As an addendum, it is also the reason, in my mind, why the poem is titled Anyway — because regardless of whether or not there is an inherent meaning, normative or otherwise, to the quest for perfection, conviction lies in pursuing it anyway.
My personal belief with regard to Sid’s question is that there is no reason why a person ’should’ perform those actions mentioned in the poem beyond the inherent ‘it seems right to me’ argument that Sonali put forward, and nor is such a larger motivating force necessary. My own belief has always been that the most that people can do is go by what they themselves feel to be right, abide by whatever ethical system seems to them to have the most appeal – whether this system is embodied in the form of a religion, or whether it is a more arbitrary set of values, or even just a set of “if…then…else” statements based entirely on context and situation, is entirely up to the dude/dudette in question. In a sense, what I guess I am saying is that I don’t believe in any power/moral force higher than what individuals themselves believe to be right; given this, the inherent moral correctness of or force behind any action depends entirely on the person judging it.
If it feels goooood, do it…
So I guess in a way I’m agreeing with both Sonali and Saketh…
I’m done now.
(Before presenting the idea, I’d like to present two conditions, aside from a monotheistic view of God, that I take for granted in my ideas:-
1. God is the most virtuous entity in existence.
2. God is the most powerful entity in existence.)
3. True virtue is mutually defendant with truth.
Virtue intends to approximate Divinity.
The poem puts in word what is actually the framework of nobility and virtue, but the overall message it intended to deliver made me think. Does this mean that altruism, in its many forms, is the ultimate virtue?
Every line in the poem implies a message of selflessness as an attribute of implied nobility. If so, then by my conditions God is the most altruistic because
a. An all powerful being will have the all the freedom of choice as individual freedom is proportional to individual power.
b. Having unlimited power and therefore freedom, it is a completely altruistic choice God makes to intervene with us.
If all these are considered true, then the following assumptions can be made.
For an individual to be in some sort of a ‘conflict’ with an all powerful and completely free and altruistic being such as God, as the last line of the poem indicates, the cause of the conflict must be origin within the individual. The uncertainty in question can be solved by examining the motives and supplementary actions required to manifest the motives performed by the individual because an all perfected God has no faults.
In other words, when faced with a dilemma when and when you are absolutely sure that the cause of your problems is due to a condition or a Force that is beyond your capability of control and apprehension, the true reason for any personal dilemma begins from oneself.
This is just my perspective. Regardless, I think its a beautiful little poem that I learned something indescribably serene from.
Three conditions** [Line 1]
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