I wrote a piece earlier on the importance and value of thinking, and now it's time for the flip side of the coin: the importance and value of doing.
Doing is an easier sell – do-ers the world over are remembered, talked about, and praised. And for good reason – the present exists the way it is because someone did something.
To do is to create truth. I could talk all day about how much I like writing songs, but until I actually put pen to paper my song writing dreams are merely words.
Our best of intentions can be questioned without doing. If I love my friend, is that true even if I don't actually act that out? Can I really say I care about others if I neglect those around me?
We learn (or at least we should) by doing. Doing is the greatest teacher: there's no more truthful a teacher than the results of one's actions.
While thinking is looking at a menu purveying the options and wondering which meal tastes the best, doing is ordering one and learning that your choice was good but needs more salt.
While thinking is watching someone from afar and guessing that they're probably not a nice person, doing is talking to that person and finding out that they've just had a rough day.
Thinking sets the stage while doing performs the play.
Also, there's a negative side to thinking that doing can help fix. Thinking too much can be like a snake eating its own tail, going around and around in a self-devouring circle that ultimately goes nowhere. Without gathering new information by doing, we can think ourselves into a false reality that has been created by our own fears, prejudices, expectations, and doubts.
Because thoughts exists in the closed box that is our mind, it's important to take action in order to stay grounded in the world outside of our own head. Thinking uses what we know to form a hypothesis, and doing tests that hypothesis, smashing it up against the hard rock of reality until only the truth remains.
And smashing it is. Doing puts you directly in the path of the unerring pickaxe of reality, and if anything you've put forth is false you'll feel the pain when it's chipped off. But, if you can hold onto what isn't removed, even though the pain is intense and often confusing, you'll be left holding onto a truth that can hold its own in the grinder of reality.
A thought vindicated by reality can be used to improve both your life and the live's of others. But, only through doing is a thought tested and made a truth.
For some, doing is easy. For others, thinking comes more naturally. Regardless, there's a fine balance between the two that's needed for a life lived well.
Thinking puts value behind doing, and doing makes that value real.