Lately I feel like I’ve been a magnet for people who say a lot, but do very little. Of course, it made me look inside myself, and I found a few interesting things.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned in the last period of my life is that actions speak louder than words. Before I never payed much attention to this, but life has it’s own ways of teaching us a lesson.
So life sent my way the perfect example of a person who will promise you the moon, but won’t live up to his promises. Nope, it wasn’t a politician! 😀
It was a teacher in India. I won’t go in detail, but let’s just say that nothing that came out of his mouth ever came true. At first I was laughing, because let’s face it – it’s India, and things never go as planned. But after a while I didn’t find it funny anymore. I didn’t trust him and I couldn’t trust his teachings either. It got so bad that I wouldn’t believe him even if he told me the sky was blue. I think the loss of credibility is the worst thing that can happen to a person in his position. In that moment I didn’t understand what kind of lesson was there for me. I admit, I’m a little bit slow sometimes 😀 I thought life was telling me not to rely on plans too much haha 😀
When I came from India and started teaching yoga, I got reminded of this again. Before I even went to India there were so many friends telling me they couldn’t wait for me to start teaching so they could come to my classes. When I started with my first classes there was even more people who seemed genuinely eager to learn yoga with me. But after a few months I realized I will probably never see them on the yoga mat in front of me. I was surprised to see that the most regular students were the ones that never wasted words, they just came to the class week by week and practiced. I started to admire these “men of actions”. And at the same time I started wondering about the “men of words”.
Now, I’m not bothered by people not coming to my classes. There were many people that never replied to my invitations or told me they were not interested, so I knew they will not be coming. I was more fascinated by those who were promising me (some of them every week) that they were coming and they never showed up. I started wondering why. Why so many words and so little action? Of course I had to look within me first. And I realized it was probably my karma 🙂
In the previous years I got told many times that my actions don’t match my words. I didn’t understand it then. I knew I wasn’t lying and I never said anything that I didn’t really mean. But I didn’t pay attention to how important my actions were. If I am telling someone I miss them, but on the other hand I never take time for them, how does this look? My words are saying one thing and my actions another. Looking back on my life I realized I wasn’t lying by saying all those things, but I was lying by not DOING them too.
I guess karma knew that and decided it was time for me to switch places 🙂
Don’t make promises you can’t keep
Coming back to the yoga enthusiasts. I know that when they say they will come to my classes they genuinely want to come. It’s not like they don’t mean what they are saying. They just always have some excuse or other priority. Which is completely fine. But making promises we can’t keep is selfish.
The truth is that in these kind of situations we just don’t think of others. Otherwise we would act in a different way. We never think that someone may be counting on us, maybe they will have problems or expenses because of us. So next time before we promise something, let’s just try to be more considerate.
If our words and actions don’t match we are not true to ourselves, we are not living our lives according to our beliefs. If we are not true to ourselves, other people will not take us seriously. Once we lose people’s trust, it’s really hard to gain it back. And there’s only one way: with actions, not words.
Actually, being true to myself and not wanting to be a hypocrite is the reason why I stopped eating animals. All my life I’ve been saying I love animals and I really meant it. When I started observing myself better I noticed that my actions didn’t match my words. Not only that, they were the complete opposite! How can I love animals and at the same time support their killing and suffering on a daily basis?!? So I stopped, just like that. I ACTED 😉
I’d love to hear about your thoughts in the comments below!
Nush
