Thinking Out Loud, Volume CCLIX

Today I'll start with a quote from Lennon, my eleven month old granddaughter, "Duh duh duh duh duh!" Yep, that's what she said. I'm not sure what she was trying to say when she told me that, but she was very emphatic when she said it. Actually she is in the first stages of learning the art of verbal communication...in other words, she's learning how to talk. It wasn't that long ago that her big brother was saying the same thing, and it was amazing how fast he turned those babbling syllables into words and became the chatterbox that he is today. The ability to talk is one of the things that sets us apart from the rest of the animal world, although it's an art that the vast majority of us find quite simple. I once saw a fiddle player showing off his skills at a country music show, and he would play holding his instrument over his head, behind his back, between his legs, and upside down, while the audience cheered and cheered at his phenomenal ability. But if you think that's cool, you should hear what I can do. I can TALK while running, walking, swimming, sitting, smiling, frowning, in the light, in the dark, and even sometimes while I'm sleeping! Are you impressed? You're not?!! I think I know why....you can do the same thing, just like everyone else you know.

I hate to say that "talk is cheap" after looking at my last cell phone bill, but I will say that talk is easy. Too easy. As a matter of fact, since we all have a tendency to spend most of our time doing what comes the easiest, talking is something that we do more than most anything else. But let me tell you something else that Lennon is starting to learn how to do now. She's learning to walk, just like all the rest of us learned to do. While we really can't say that walking is all that difficult either, it's not as easy as talking, so which of the two do we do more? Which one of the two is most likely to get us to where we need to be? Which of the two is most likely to get us into predicaments where we don't need to be? Now I'm not here to pin any flowers on myself, because I have the ability to be as vocal as anyone else, but as I feel certain that my fellow runners can confirm, one of the phrases we hear the most from people we pass on the street is, "You're doing what I need to be doing." Do you know what they're actually doing when they say that? Talking. That's all...just talking. Running, walking and exercising are just some of the examples of the areas where we talk too much and do too little. What about losing weight? Or kicking a bad habit? Or helping the needy? Or developing a closer walk with God? The list could go on and on. All those are areas where we've said we're going to do a better job. We've "said" we're going to do better, so now we've got the easy part behind us...."saying" we're going to do it. The next step requires a little more effort. It's what separates the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the achievers from the wannabe's.

A few weeks ago, Mark Briggs, one of my facebook friends, reposted a statement that he had seen on Twitter that grabbed my attention, so I posted it on my page, which resulted in a few others also posting it on their pages as well. It simply said, "A year from now, you may wish you had started today." To how many areas of your life can you apply that statement? Before we actually do anything of significance, most of us will make the statement that we're going to do it, so let's concede that the verbal part of it is a necessary first step. But if saying it is as far as we go, we'd get just as much accomplished if we just said the same thing that Lennon said in the first sentence of this blog, "Duh duh duh duh duh."

Preston