Doing and Saying

Recently I've been thinking about this theme of connecting with people. The question I'm curious about is what leaves a greater impact, one's actions or words.

For a long time I believed that doing is more important than saying, or actions more important than words. (it's been my mantra, like a guiding principle, and caused me to make some mistakes in relationship and...just life in general).

The reasons I took up that firm belief were:

1) I did not always feel confident "talking" to people. 

Well honestly there were many times when I felt intimidated by the situation for no obvious reasons. Normally in this "mode" I wouldn't want to talk, and couldn't engage in a group conversation. My brain just shut off and I lose the ability to entertain people and be entertained.

That normally happens when I'm trapped with colleagues in a small space (people I'm not close to but know I'd have to spend a lot of time with). I felt uneasy and awkward in the sense that if I feel that they're not interested in talking to me, I'll quickly feel disheartened and won't take the initiative to talk to them. Very passive in a way. Yea.

This bothered me a lot, because I thought I wasn't out going enough, I'm anti-social and this and that..I got quite carried away so much so that at the back of my mind I kinda always had this feeling that people don't like me.   So as a way to make myself feel better I always told myself it's ok, what you say or don't say doesn't matter, it's what you do that define you as a person. Sure it did help take those worries off my mind. I stopped loathing myself constantly, and instead focused on doing things that make me feel good about myself, like doing more work in a group setting.

At the end of the day, I do want people to think good of me. And I still care how people think of me. Though definitely not as much as before. 

2) People are forgetful. 

Not that they really forget, but people's feelings change, circumstances change. We not only change emotionally and psychologically within, but also change in response to our surroundings, the people and friends around us. We get influenced by friend and family and happenings all the time. So there can hardly be anything uttered by the mouth,  that can forever seal in the state of something. 

That's why I don't believe in promises (relationship-wise), things like 非你不娶 or 我认定你了. And I don't think guys who say these and later break up with the girls are 负心汉. Simply because any such phrases should not be held accountable. They only hold true when they are said, but not necessarily after. It's like breaking up the present and future, and looking at today and tomorrow as distinct, separate time periods. Every period is fresh, new, and independent of one another.

I'm sure they mean it when they say it. But so many changes happen that it can be very far from the truth afterwards.  A lot of things that we say, belong to this category. 

So I told myself, what I say will be quickly forgotten, let me not be bothered by my inability to say nice things. Just focus on doing the nice things (for others and myself). 

For the past two months of so I realized I've put too little time in connecting with people the right way, and instead spent too much time immersed in work. Studies and house work. Always in a rush, always doing something. In the process of "doing", I missed out on a lot:

Things like just focusing on the person talking to you, thinking of ways to engage him/her, to ask interesting questions or give helpful advice--basically just giving your 100% to connect with people.