actions speak loudest

I have always believed in that. Long before anyone told me, or I read it in a book, or by the very famous quotes that I will list below.

Actions will always speak louder. 

Words help. I am not discounting the effect of words, and the warmth that it spreads, but if the words are not backed by actions, the words remain empty. As a child I think I yearned for the words. Coz I was still small, I couldn’t translate the action of my parents to how much I meant to them. I was and still am a verbal, visceral person. I need the words, touch and the action to be in harmony for me to start believing in them. Maybe it’s a curse, coz it is an added burden to many who are fortunate to not analyze and who accept things as they come to them. I don’t consciously go about dissecting a character, things pop into my head and I tend to see a lot more depth than I would like to, to be honest.

***

This is true. I remember very vividly my father advising us on being guarded and to protect ourselves as young girls from the evil machinations of the world. There was plenty good, but unless the person has proved himself worthy of your trust, do not trust them.

Now, it may be a dark view of life, and even an extreme way of raising strong girl child but we will believe and are the sum of our experiences. He taught us what he felt was best under the circumstances and after a few scuffles in my own head and with the other close folks who joined me as adults, I still think there is considerable validity to his philosophy. It’s a different matter that I have not followed it to the tee 🙂

***

Ive had some trouble with this quote. I believe that we are ALSO what we pretend to be.

Facebook is a huge and very valid example.

We all want to be liked. To be popular and to be validated for what we do and what we display. However selective we want to show ourselves, it IS a part of us. So, there is an online personality that we choose to show, the good side of us, the glamorous side of the otherwise simple us. Ive been online long enough to know that we cannot, try as hard as we might, hide our real selves. The real us, will seep out. In our comments, likes, the words we choose to update our statuses, and so on. This is like a smaller subset of the real us.

So if you pretend to be funny and say something full of yourself, then well, you are to an extent full of yourself.

***

Fabulously phrased.

Show your love. In your touch, in your actions, in your thought, and then in your words. The words, let them come from deep within you, show your care in how you treat them, in the way you look at them, in the way you reach out, without rhyme or reason, across space and time.

The words don’t carry much value when they do not follow their own weight in actions.

Amen.

***

A quote that’s stood by me through may years, when I was first introduced to her book and writings.

We all have our deep vignettes of flashbacks, scenes from our life sometimes way down than we can care about. They are the extreme emotions (in all likelihood) that a particular event has occurred which has made us feel a certain way.

I remember embarrassment when I forgot my lines I was to say in front of the whole school and muttered and stammered and shrunk my 3 minute speech  into 45 seconds. I remember my teacher making me feel better when she said what I did speak, I spoke well. It made me feel better about me. I was 13 years old.

Or when I felt that wondrous shock and then unbridled joy and burst with happiness when I saw a friend at the airport on my way to India.

Or when I was overwhelmed with sadness watching my blue cycle being taken away by my dad’s friend for his daughter, when I was barely 11 years old.

Or when I was petrified when I discovered that my mom-dad left me and my little sister alone and did not show up for more than 2 hours, and how I held on to my sister, feeling incredibly responsible for her, as she barely 5 years old slept in my lap. I was 9 years old. (they had some calls to make and were at the neighbors’ below in the apartments and each thought the other told me)

..and so on.

***

So you see, if there is one thing that you tell yourself or your child as a parent, teach them that words don’t mean much if they are not backed by actions. Sometimes, words are like the icing on the cake. Cake’s good enough by itself, the icing makes the experience sweeter. Just eating icing alone, is fine enough for a short while, and then the sweetness gets to you, and you will balk and fall sick.

No fun then yeah?