Excerpts from Community and Growth
Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don’t talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.
…
This week’s excerpt is shorter than usual, but it carries an important message. There’s research that shows that saying you’re going to do something/accomplish a goal gives you the same high as actually doing it. That explains all the times you have made a public announcement and never followed through, but still felt pretty good about it. I find two important themes in this excerpt. The first is humility. Those with humility bring small joys to their community and do not require any fanfare to do so. They don’t need other people to know what they’re doing in order to get it done. The second is the difference between intention and action. Those that talk a lot about what they are doing can still have good intentions, but these intentions aren’t always followed by action. Thus, although intention is important, it has little impact unless it’s acted upon. I think these are timely themes in the age of social media, when every activity is carefully filtered and documented.
There’s not even a need to walk the talk. Just walk.