Walk The Talk
“Knowing what’s right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right.” – Theodore Roosevelt
It is wholly one thing to speak beautiful words and wholly another to live your life in a beautiful way.
Our lips can give voice to sweeping visions of kindness, acceptance, grace, and unity. I believe that loving and lovely words are a treasured gift unto themselves. And I also believe that it is so imperative to take an honest inventory of whether or not our actions align with the words we speak.
Are we actually practicing what we preach, walking the talk, choosing to live our beliefs rather than simply speaking about them?
When we are willing to genuinely open up our hearts and sharpen our gazes to take a gentle inventory of the things we do on a daily basis, the way that we are interacting with the world, the life we are choosing to live each day, we can see if our actions line up with the opinions we share, the beliefs we cherish, and the ideals we hold dear.
Here's an interesting thing to try: make two lists, one of the values you set store by and another of your day-to-day actions…how do they compare?
I've had a series of bittersweet realizations about this recently. It's not always very nice to look at and it's so easy to ignore the gaps (sometimes gorges) between some of our most cherished tenets and actually living them. How can I stand up and speak of self-acceptance, of progress over perfection, and of shining over shrinking when I struggle in each moment to embody those words? I think it is a challenge to live beyond our good intentions and to take them into good action.
But it's a challenge I am devoted to tackle day-by-day, step-by-step, and moment-by-moment with my whole heart because I would hate to get to the end of this life and not feel proud of the way that I lived and of the person I chose to be. Let's not just talk about it...let's BE it.
“I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.”- Anthony Robbins
