Actions and Words

When Jacob was in fifth grade, I was after him for a few weeks to write an essay for a Foundations For Life contest. As the due date approached, I asked him one last time to get going, to which he responded, "I already wrote it!" Pleasantly surprised by his answer and curious to know which quote he used, I asked, "On what?" and he innocently replied, "On notebook paper."  

Guest Post by Jacob Gruener

Actions speak louder than words. – American proverb

The saying “actions speak louder than words” means a lot to me because actions really do speak louder. It is better to do something than to just say you will. For instance, if someone said that they were going to do community service, just saying it wouldn’t be as helpful as actually doing it. I’ve seen a lot of posters around my school that say that character is about how you ACT.  In fact, the word act is actually embedded in the word character. That quote shows a lot of character.

An example of this is when I helped increase my friend’s chance to win a ping-pong table in a raffle.  He only had one ticket that the teacher passed out, and, since my mom donated to our fundraiser, I’d gotten one hundred and twenty tickets. I heard him say that he would really like the ping-pong table and that he was going to put his one ticket into that bucket. When I heard this, I decided to help him by putting in a couple of my tickets with his name on them. I never told him, but it felt good to help a friend. I was very excited when I heard over the announcements that he had won the pingpong table.

Another good example of this quote in action is when my mom told me that she would help me find a job so I could earn some money.  Her promise didn’t help me as much until she actually found me a job.  She gave me the responsibility of planning our family meals, clipping coupons for the ingredients we need, and helping her shop for these items. She helped me find a way to make money, not by her words, but by her actions. And now I have enough money to buy my whole family birthday presents.

I hope that the adage “actions speak louder than words” not only means much in my life but in yours, too. It is a great thing to keep in mind next time you’re tempted to just say something instead of doing something. If you use the Six Pillars of Character, they will give you the courage to take action instead of just watching or talking about it on the sidelines. My actions helped my friend and my mom’s actions helped me. If everybody were to do something for someone else, the world would be a better place.