Many things in life are overrated, and
I have done many of them. Home cooking,
exercise and hip hop music are some that come
immediately to my mind. There are others that
are more esoteric, but the one I’m thinking about
today is “thought.” I’ve spent much of my life thinking about things.
Fortunately, many of those thoughts turned out to be nothing but
thoughts that were never put into action. Often, it was because I
deemed nothing needed to be done, while other times I rethought the
situation and decided my first thought should be abandoned.
I grew up believing that by using my mind, I could make wise
decisions and discover the correct paths to follow. I was under the
impression that reason, knowledge and experience could be combined
to create a roadmap for life that I could follow without fear of dead
ends, detours or roadblocks. As it turned out, when I look back, I realize
that despite my efforts to logically and reasonably plot a life course, I
have often stumbled from one happy venture to the next one in spite
of my careful planning to proceed in different directions.
I consistently tried to think things through, to consider
the pros and cons and then to make calculated
judgments based upon those thoughts. Despite how careful
I was, I made mistake after mistake and yet always ended up
where I was happy, even if it was not where I had intended to go.
Some people believe you can’t think things through enough. However,
very often, that is just a way to avoid making decisions. Obviously,
some things must be thought over before you act, but it is possible to
mull over your uncertainties for so long that nothing ever gets done.
Finding the right balance between thoughts and actions is difficult, but
I have found that the more you do and the less you think about it, the
greater the results that you will achieve. After all is said and done, you
usually will find that more is said than done. With me, many of my
accomplishments were due more to perspiration than to inspiration.
The ability to think is our greatest strength, but it can also become
a weakness if we let it overwhelm our ability to make a decision.
It seems that life is not a puzzle to be solved but rather an
adventure to be enjoyed and cherished no matter how it evolves. If
thinking would make it so, we would all have our dreams fulfilled.
But since life doesn’t work that way, I have decided to be thankful for
whatever occurs to me, even if it is not always something to my
liking, as oftentimes those disappointments ultimately end up leading
to something wonderful.
Don’t think about this too much, but on the other hand, now that
you have read my words, I’m sure you’ll find some of them to be true
for yourself.
I’m not myself today and everybody has noticed the improvement 79