Monday, July 28, 2008

Actions, and only actions, determine who you are

I read something once that was at once meaningful to me: “Actions, and only actions, determine who you are”. It’s true: There’s no such thing as faith in potential; potential is revealed only by some action at some point, and the magnitude of the action at that time or number of times the action was observed determines potential. However, it’s not possible to invest in just potential. You must ACT every day, because you are only as good as your last day. Past glories are easily forgotten, and past mistakes easily remembered.

This is especially meaningful to people who believe they have potential, but don’t utilize it. This means that they don’t have actions to back up their claims, which in turn means that they don’t have any way of proving (to themselves first, then to others) that they can do what they BELIEVE they can. So if you think you KNOW you can do something, but you don’t, it means that you don’t really know for SURE if you can or not. Not to say that you CANNOT do it, just that you can't say that you CAN. with full certainty. It's the difference between designing a program and actually implementing it -- the devil is in the detail, and you have to face that devil.

I apologize for the abundant cliché usage, but they all seem to apply appropriately :)

7 comments:

vcd said...

Very true point though I do not completely agree with this: "So if you think you KNOW you can do something, but you don’t, it means that you don’t really know for SURE if you can or not" ... Not trying just means that you have not tried something. I do not believe it necessarily means something more. But I wholeheartedly agree with your point that harping on potential without converting any into action is completely worthless.

AC said...

point is: if you KNOW you can do something that will improve your life, but you don't because of XYZ reasons (laziness, i can get to it later, have better things to do), you can never really make the claim that you CAN do it. Not to say you can't -- just that you can't be SURE you can. The difference between writing a design spec and actually implementing a product - the devil is in the detail.

AC said...

modified the original post to clarify this point. thx vcd!

Anonymous said...

Great thoughts and good intentions have never changed anything in history. Action does. :-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks to his girlfriend, Batman figured this out long time ago. He says "It's not who I am underneath, but what I *do* that defines me". Bottomline - get a girlfriend :-).

Unknown said...

Piyush, I remeber those lines from the movie. Nice catch.
Abhi, Loved the line: “Actions, and only actions, determine who you are”. But I dont agree when you say " you are only as good as your last day" because I think we learn lot of little things everyday and every minute whether it is concious or not. And these things makes a difference in who we are in long term.

AC said...

Thanks all for your comments. I believe in this statement, and am working towards making it happen for myself.

@Howard: Trouble is -- does action without thought change the world for the better? Think Iraq and GWB. Maybe that's an extreme, but seems like you need both. Otherwise you get a movie like Hot Shots in real life.

@Piyush: thanks for the encouragement ;). Btw, I wrote this down a while before the batman movie came out, just didn't publish it on this blog. I should sue Batman ... but then I think .. who is Batman? "One of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, who is secretly a vigilante who beats criminals to a pulp with his bare hands." And my plan is to sue this person? Good luck to me! ;)

@Udyani: You are absolutely right when you say that we learn a lot of useful things each day. Let me then restate my line as "it doesn't matter how much you learn each day, if you don't put it into action each day after you've imbibed it". As Howard said: Great thoughts and good intentions have never changed anything in history.