Early this year, I broke up with my girlfriend and in many ways, I am still in the middle of cutting ties. The emotional ties are mostly cut, but other ones still linger. Due to financial and legal obligations, I still am involved in talking and dealing with her. Not for long, I suspect.
Anyway, the reason for that back story was to create context for my question. Over the last few emotionally turbulent months, I have noticed that she does things that she said she didn't believe in or didn't do. Essentially, she thinks and believes she doesn't do certain (not so nice) things; but she does them anyway. I am able to see this discrepancy much more clearly now that I don't have my love-blinders on.
This brings me to the point about actions and words. There is an English idiom that says "Actions speak louder than words", which is more than clear to me now than ever before. We say, think and believe things that we want to be true. Actions on the other hand are rarely controlled by our thoughts (unless we develop them as habits). This is why our actions are a better mirror of ourselves and our ideologies than what we tell/believe about ourselves.
So going further, when we meet a new person, we should place more value on their actions than their words. But this presents a whole bunch of problems.
Actions take time to reveal personal ideologies. Until then words have to be trusted. I have noticed that words influence (or pollute) my perception of the person. And, when conflicting actions are presented, I dismiss them. (I do these seemingly silly things because I want to enjoy the ride.) Besides, trusting the words is in the interest of the new relationship. Starting a relationship by being critical is certainly to be very quickly doomed. Not to mention, being critical about everything in a relationship is hardly enjoyable! One must let go of a large number of things and roll with the waves.
This presents a predicament. Long-term versus short-term. Actions versus words. Blind trust versus critical view.
I would love to hear what you folks think of this. Perhaps some of you can offer some insight into this from your experience on this planet. Any and all thoughts are welcome.
Cheers