Most of the time, we never know

A fact of life is that we typically don't know the people we've affected the most.  I've heard from long-ago students thanking me for turning their lives around, kids I hadn't a clue anything I'd said or done had touched.  There they are, wrapping me in a hug & saying, "Thank you!"   

I think of an older friend, someone edging toward her mid-90s who faces memory challenges every day, yet makes an unforgettable impact on the people we see on our rambles.  Friends at an up-country inn we frequented every Wednesday night to hear the great jazz songstress, Barbara Trent;  the All-Star Jazz Trio at Square on Square, where we head once a month for their jazz stylings;  the staff & regulars at Warminster West, Bonnet Lane, West Avenue Grill.  

My older friend & traveling buddy hasn't a clue how they break into smiles when she enters the room.  She makes a difference to them by just showing that it's possible to tip you way toward 100, even face some of the most serious challenges of aging, and never lost your verve, your zest for life & living.

Life takes interesting turns.  Someone told me about a fellow who gave up his dream of being a writer, got back into the corporate world, then over ten years later found one of his short stories included in an anthology of the best stories of 1995.  Stunned, he promtly quite his 9-to-5 job, returned to writing, and became a successful author.  

But the most awesome story about someone with NO clue about his impact on others has to be Dr. Kent Keith.  

Dr. Keith is a fascinating man with rich life experience.  Born in Brooklyn, he was raised in a ecletic range of places, from Nebraska to Rhode Island, Virginia to Hawaii.  He graduated from Harvard with a degree in government, read philosophy & politics as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, returned to Harvard to study law, finally earned his Ed.D. from the University of Southern California.  Not shabby!

Today, Dr. Keith is a successful author, teacher & public speaker.  His mission - helping people find meaning in our crazy world.  Prominently featured in The New York Times, People magazine, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Family Circle, he's been interviewed on the Today Show, quoted in The Wall Street Journal and Inc.com, and appeared on dozens of TV shows & more than 100 radio programs around the world.

But all his success & accolades didn't prepare him for what happened in September 1997, at the regular meeting of his local  Rotary Club.  

Rotary Club meetings typically begin with a prayer or thought for the day.  Dr. Keith was all attention as a fellow Rotarian rose & noted with great respect Mother Teresa's recent passing.  In her memory, he read a poem she'd written, titled Anyway.  

Dr. Keith bowed his head in honor - and was astonished by what he heard.  To the rest of the group, the poem - which my mother had framed on her bedroom wall - was inspiring, uplifting. To Dr. Keith, it was infinitely more.

ANYWAY
 

People are unreasonable, illogical, 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 win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY

 
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY

 
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

 
What you spent years building may be
destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY

 
People really need help
but may attack you if you 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'VE GOT ANYWAY.

After the meeting, Dr. Keith made a beeline for the speaker, asking where he got the poem.  It had been in a book about Mother Theresa.  That night, he went to a bookstore & checked through books about the remarkable nun.  He learned the poem had been discovered on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children's home she'd founded in Calcutta. I can't imagine how he felt, finally locating it.  As he describes it, "I wanted to laugh, and cry, and shout-and I was getting chills up and down my spine."

Why his astonishment, the longing to laugh & cry & shout, the chills going up & down his spine?  The poem Mother Theresa had posted included eight of ten Paradoxical Commandments that Kent Keith, a 19-year old Harvard undergrad, had written as "guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity."

How many people stood in the bookstore when he came across those words, reformated as a poem?  Certainly his younger self, the one who wrote them.  His then current-day, almost 50-year old self.  Mother Theresa on her first reading of the Paradoxical Commandments, then as she reformatted & hung them on the wall to see.

Imagine how it felt, how the hairs on the back of his neck must have stood up, hearing his fellow Rotarian reading HIS words, something he'd written thirty years before, miraculously being shared as something from Mother Teresa.  

Imagine how it felt, realizing that something he'd written as a teenager had inspired the most inspirational figure of our day.  Inspired her so much, she reformatted it to hang where she cared for Calcutta's outcast children.

Now, imagine how you would feel hearing from or about someone whose life you touched in ways you could never have guessed.  I assure you it has happened.  Like my dear older friend, we all touch lives in ways we can't imagine.  

The only thing up to us is whether we touch them as unknowing beacons of life & hope, like my older friend does through her joy in living each day, no matter what challenges it may bring  ~or~  as cautionary tales, attitudes or behaviors that others experience & swear to never ever repeat themselves.  

In his wildest dreams, Kent Keith could not have imagined something he wrote several lifetimes earlier moved Mother Theresa to action, just as my friend is clueless about the many lives she touches, just being who she is.   Most of the time, we never know.  

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.

written by Kent Keith, 1968