Thoughts and Actions

I usually don’t talk about myself, but I will say I’m well experienced in the area of thought. I have all the nice little scholastic accolades and the degrees and all that. Y’all have seen me talk about Mensa, and hopefully some of these here entries also show that I’m pretty good at this thought thing (whether you all agree with what I say is another matter altogether).

Here’s one thing I’ve noticed: thought without action means pretty much nothing.

The image I’ve always had in mind when thinking about this is of a person pulling back on a rubber band, in a slingshot fashion. As I’m sure everyone knows, there’s a direct relationship between how far back you pull the rubber band and how much energy there is inside that rubber band - which of course is released when you let go (it’s much easier to think of this in terms of an actual slingshot and how far the object travels).

The further you pull back the band, the more energy you store. However, there’s another relationship present. The longer you hold that rubber band, the less energy the rubber band has. Feel free to try this little experiment in physics if you like. There are a few reasons for this, but I won’t bore you with kinetics. I’ll skip to the part where I go back to how this relates to thought and action.

We can have the most wonderful thoughts in the world as people. We can intend to volunteer somewhere. We can mean to hold the door open for people. We can strongly consider making a donation to a person or a cause. However, if we don’t act on these things then those who need our help…still need our help - because we didn’t ‘do’ anything.

As you all probably know, I think one of the biggest problems we have in society is that we’ve forgotten how to act (as in “do”, not “behave”…although sometimes I question that too). That’s why action is so shocking and relevant now. The occupy movements wouldn’t have registered a blip on the collective radar a generation or two ago. They were all the rage last year, though. That’s because the participants’ actions were so far from the norm that we took notice. Same with the Nuns on the Bus right now. They’re taking action to get their message out concerning social ills.

We don’t have to live in tents and protest or travel across several different states to take action, and our actions don’t have to be that dramatic. We don’t even have to help our fellow human beings (although it would be nice). We can better the world simply by taking more action ourselves. Maybe it’s by going to the gym that extra day or partaking in some other form of personal enlightenment or enrichment.

Or perhaps our actions can/should involve others. I do think that niceness is contagious, and that an ‘epidemic’ thereof would do the world a lot of good. Helped people help others, and they often help themselves as well. It’s so easy to give people shots of ridicule, but I would guess it’s a lot better to give them shots of compassion, of energy, of support.

Anyway, if you’re thinking of doing something - anything - that could help the world in any way (even if it’s just by helping yourself)…go ahead and do it. Let the rubber band go. Watch it fly. You may not know exactly where it’s going, but you know through basic physics that it’s going to move forward.