Think Less. Act More.

The irony of this title is not lost on the author of THINK.

For most of my life, I’ve agreed with Descartes — I think, therefore I am.

But what about Emerson and his theory about what constitutes a “great soul”? Such a soul, Emerson concluded, is one that has the strength to live.

But there’s the rub that Hamlet talked about, right? That rub that makes such calamity of life?

Because if one does not think well, one will not have the strength to live at all — only to exist.

Living without thinking is to skate from one episode of action to another, willy nilly, for all intents and purposes.

Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, Emerson, Descartes — aren’t they all chasing the same answer to the same question:

Is an individual measured

by what he thinks?

… by what he says?

or by what he does?

I’m assuming there must be some people who say what they think, mean what they say, and act both as they think and as they say.

(Where, oh, wherefore, art thou, my elusive little unicorn?)

Thoreau challenged us to look deeper with his distinction between passive action and action with integrity.

Thoreau asserts throughout his writing that we must act on principle, with our entire being. But in order to act on principle, we must sound the depths of our heart and mind, and in order to sound those depths we must engage in self-contemplation …

… now we’re back to cogito ergo sum, aren’t we?

Because really, it doesn’t matter how confident we are in our person or in our action — if we cannot truly understand the motivation behind what we do and what we say, what good is the action itself?

This is the quandary, isn’t it? If we really don’t know our own selves well enough to know why we act as we act, then does the action have any real meaning to it at all?

The trick to living a life worth living is to balance forever, wobbly if need be, on the high wire between thinking and acting — that high wire is understanding the “why.”

I’ve relied heavily on the mind and its processes of information gathering, analysis, and logical conclusions … and of course, in business and in many of the pragmatic areas of my life, that reliance has been rewarding.

This is the sign that has sat in my office for nearly 14 years. As much as it has inspired me … I think it’s time as come to go.

But I’m beginning to understand — just a glimmer of understanding, really, what Emerson might have meant when he wrote that, without action:

“thought can never ripen into truth.”

I’m loath to admit that I’ve been in a nearly dormant state of action for the last 10 years. Oh, I’ve worked my ass off; I’ve helped friends and family; I’ve misspent many hours; and showered innumerable days of attention on the felines who’ve lived with me.

To not completely throw myself under the bus, I will say that during this past decade of do-little-tude, my mind, at least, has been in high gear, even if my actions weren’t.

I’m grateful for the massive self-confrontation I’ve engaged in — the willingness to dig down and root out the shit parts of who I’ve been in my life. I’m proud of the excruciating, almost-too-relentlessly long looks I’ve taken in the mirror to see past the façade and strip it bare.

Still working on it — that’s a lifelong project, no doubt — but despite having sat my rump on the sidelines of life for an embarrassingly too-many-years, I’m proud of the unseeable work I’ve done. Just wish I had gotten a bit more done externally as well.

Because for all that thinking … not much of it really “ripened into truth” — i.e., the truest part of living … the kind of living where you are authentically, unapologetically (but kindly) yourself and you ACT AS YOU ARE. I haven’t really done that yet. I’m close. But close is no cigar.

And damn, time is fleeting, madness takes its toll, and I’m getting long in the tooth!

(I SO hope at least some of you get this reference … ‘else I’m truly lost in this time warp all on my lonesome.)

That I’ve accomplished so little of real importance despite the sturm und drang of the self-excavation I was engaged in during that the past roughly 3,650 days — that my mind is blown, but only half as much as my heart is.

And now, with yet another year of pandemic nearly gone like so much dust in the wind, and another “big” decade of my life starting out … alarm bells are going off … egads, exactly how old can you be before mulligans are no longer available an option?

Thought without action — and it’s painful to realize this so late in one’s life — is meaningless.

That’s what I’ve done for 10 years … I’ve been über-courageous in thinking and looking inward, but I’ve been a veritable coward when it came to taking action — to actually acting on my thoughts — to putting all that thinking, and analyzing, and self-challenge into quantifiable, tangible outcomes.

I’ve got to change that shit.

The THINK sign’s been replace by this sea turtle heading into the waves. If that’s not the “think less. do more” philosophy in action, I don’t know what is. Bonus story: the image is a card that my Mom sent me in my twenties and that I framed in this precious, very old, wooden frame that you can see has been knocked around and carried all over the world with me (literally, I even packed up this little bugger and took it off to Paris with me in 1993). Now, it will inspire me, once more, and makes me think of Henry V —

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up …

Imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage … “

For more inspiration, I’m turning to Goethe, whom I’ve never really studied. But he has me intrigued with this little ditty:

To think is easy.
To act is difficult.
To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hmmmmm … let me not give that some thought. ;)

P.S. What have you delayed doing in your life — what are you thinking about too much and not doing or procrastinating about doing? Leave a comment or send me an email in reply … I really want to know. xoxoxo