EDITORIAL
Life is paradoxical; live it well anyway

In the past year, we've seen an Alabama judge doggedly defy the separation of church and state in his crusade to keep a monument to the Ten Commandments in his courthouse lobby.

And let's not forget that senior Pentagon official who boasted to an audience how he told a Muslim that "my god was bigger than his."

As certain true believers — and not just Christians — feel compelled to assert their moral superiority in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, it's worth reviewing an alternative code that bears as much relevance today as it did when first published in the 1960s.

The author of the "Paradoxical Commandments" is Kent M. Keith, who moved to Hawai'i at age 14 and attended Roosevelt High.

Keith has been a Rhodes scholar, president of Chaminade University and a high-ranking state official, among other accomplishments. But he is perhaps best known for a pamphlet aimed at student councils that he wrote when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate.

As far as we're concerned, his "Paradoxical Commandments" would be appropriate in any courthouse. Here they are:

1. People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. 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.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.