Our culture glorifies do-ers.
It doesn't matter what you're doing, all that matters is that when someone asks you how you've been you reply, "I've been busy!" – God forbid there be even a moment during our day where we don't have something to do.
When we wait, what do we do? We pull out our phones, flipping through whatever will keep our attention until we move on to the next thing to do.
Doing is everything; thinking comes second, but only if doing is reigning supreme.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing. Doing is important – doing is the reason things become done; doing creates, builds, and makes the world move. Life without doing is a massive waste of potential.
But, today's "doing" has an implied meaning to it: I'm busy doing because other people need me to do these things. I'm busy, people need me, I'm important.
Now, I'm not here to cast judgement on the need we feel to be busy. I'm just as guilty as the next person when it comes to wanting to feel important, and I've certainly used the "I've been busy" line before – sometimes it's just a quick answer to the "How've you been question" that is convenient for the time.
There's nothing wrong with doing, but can't we value thinking just as much?
After all, thinking is what should be guiding our doing. Instead of doing based off of whatever else society around us is doing, we should be taking the time to do what is right – and this requires knowing what is right.
Knowing requires understanding, understanding requires learning, and learning requires thinking. And thinking requires blood, sweat, and tears.
Anyone who's done any serious thinking knows that thinking isn't easy. One question leads to 10 more which then leads to 10 more, and many of these questions attack your view of yourself and the world around you.
Thinking is climbing a cliffside in the dark, feeling out the next finger hold with trepidation and hoping a moonbeam will break through the clouds to shine some light on your progress.
Thinking is boxing with yourself; throwing blow after blow onto your body, looking for a weakness but hoping you can stand up to the assault.
Thinking is laying a brick road by hand, sweating on your knees as you carefully place each brick so that someday you can travel on it with ease.
Thinking is not fun.
But, thinking is necessary. Thinking enables doing that matters. It gives you understanding behind your actions, and makes it so that you no longer have to hide behind cliches. Thinking lets you see the world as it really is, and then enables you to live in that world instead of in a fake world created by someone else.
Your actions will become just that, actions, instead of reactions to the pressures of your surroundings. You can live with purpose because you'll know why you are doing the things you're doing.
Thinking will also get you in trouble. Many won't understand why you choose to do the things you do because they haven't taken the time to think. Humans aren't comfortable with change or the unknown, and when they see others like them living differently it will make them uncomfortable, and they may respond in disappointing ways.
There's something about a person sitting quietly, thinking, that throws people off. Why are they sitting there? What could they possibly be thinking? Why don't they do something?
Doing is important – I'll say it again: life without doing is a waste of potential.
However, I for one would rather do 5 things I believe in doing then 50 things I'm doing only because others are doing them.
Doing is valuable, but thinking is what makes it valuable.