Submitted for your perusal -- Kent M. Keith's The Paradoxical Commandments
written in 1968 as part of a booklet for student leaders. Later he expanded the poem into a book -- Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments: Finding Personal Meaning In A Crazy World
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.
A lot like how I have lived my life. I refuse to drop to the level of the haters and naysayers and do my best to live my life according to the ethics that I hold to be true and important to me.
Some people make it difficult at times though!