Actions. They really do speak louder than words. Actions never dance with the ambiguity of the spoken or written word. Perhaps an action on the part of another could be interpreted more than one way, but the words of another often lead themselves to a myriad of interpretations guided by our desires, hopes, and fears. What we read into words can be endless.
When it comes to communication, human nature encourages us to hear what we want and believe it, whether it’s true or not. When the actions of another contradict what they say, the desire to rationalize the behavior to fit what we wanted to hear is overwhelming. My female readers will relate well to the effects of the estrogen rollercoaster we all ride in our prime. You are slowly creeping toward something amazing and then you top the hill and the rush of the sudden descent either exhilarates you or scares the ever loving shit out of you. We experience everything this way, the build to the descent to the often empty feeling at the bottom. The difference in what you feel when you land down low depends on the strength of what brought you to the top. How you feel at the bottom becomes directly proportionate to the action which brought you speeding down the hill. What you heard or didn’t hear along the way is of no consequence.
I don’t often watch chick flicks, but when I do, chocolate, emotion and a dislocated understanding usually watch them with me. I found myself at a low point one rainy Sunday not too long ago. Clicking through channels, I came across ‘He’s Just Not That In to You’. Not the best estrogen filled two hours I’ve ever spent, but ladies, so many truths within we struggle not to face. Why? Because they chain our fairy tale love story to the back of a pick up and drag it down a muddy back road, not just killing it but tearing it apart like a murder of starving crows.
And it’s all true. The fairy tale lies torn apart, so bloody it’s unrecognizable. The concept of ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ can be applied to any relationship. Friendships, love interests, familial attachments, and our every day acquaintances, those relationships all live and die on our actions, not our words. Words, without corresponding action, mean very little. Creative, beautiful, poetic words are, but they are often spoken in haste, judgment, passion, confusion, desperation and the like. They have the power to lift of us up and tear us down in a single sentence. At the end of the day, they are the relationship Kool Aid we drink in the absence of action when we decide we really want to believe in something or someone.
Actions, when you finally listen, the cacophonous drone of their meaning will be all you hear.
Our technology today is so advanced the ways we verbally communicate have expanded and evolved into a less personal, more ambiguous form of what my generation grew up using. It’s even more difficult today to comb through the tangle of what you read and hear. What really matters is what happens. Pay attention to what happens. Is it what was promised? Two things to remember:
1. The people you should keep company with are those who remain true to their word.
2. There are two sides to every story, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle.
People are simply good intentions stitched together with flaws. Instead of fooling yourself into the fairy tale of perfect relationships, look for relationships as perfectly flawed as you are. There is great happiness to be found in the company of like minded people. Successfully interpreting the actions of those around you will always find you surrounded by the right people.