>_< WORDS VS. ACTIONS

What do you think is more powerful? Actions or words?

Lets take a look at some opinions before i give my own -- and these will remain anonymous.

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"I believe words can be actions"

"Actions! It shows your thoughts and efforts, words is just way too easy for anyone to say. People can be yapping on and on about how much they love you, cares for you, but really... words are just there to 'support' it."

"Words are more powerful. Actions leave marks that fade and go away but words stick with you forever."
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All very decent opinions and I can honestly say I could go both ways. It definitely depends on the situation: whether it affects your life at that moment or if it affects your life for a long time. But then again, actions and words can both be longterm and short term. I suppose I'll state my opinion for both... then maybe I'll come to a conclusion by the end of the blog.

Let's start with words. Words, as many of my English professors say, are the most powerful tools in a humans arsenal. Take for example The Catcher and the Rye. A majority of the book deals with Holden's struggle to get people to listen to him, and it shows through the characters he interacts with. When he was in the room with the prostitute? He didn't want to have meaningless sex, he wanted to talk to her. Even towards the end as it becomes clear that Holden is telling the his story to a shrink, even the shrink doesn't listen. The power of words shines through the fact that this novel has become one of the greatest novels ever written (and my personal favorite) as we as humans are finally the only people who listen to him, and relate to his struggle. In that sense words are much stronger than actions.

Words to me can do a lot of long term damage. We as humans can be affected greatly by something in a book, or what our parents say to us when we are children. Words are affective in a sense that we have more time to think about what to write and publish before we do anything we can possibly regret in the future.

Of course words in my opinion are words that are written down. The quote at the beginning states that words can be actions. Which is completely true. Spoken words are definitely actions. Which is also part of the reason why this topic brings so much debate. But lets move on to actions anyway.

Actions are the best way to support your words. You don't want to say you're not a racist in a blog and get caught saying a racial slur. Actions are a great way to prove to other people that you mean business. In that sense actions can be better than words, they're quicker to present to people and downsides include actions you didn't really mean to do.

Like the quote above, you can say that you love someone. But you'll never get them to believe it unless you do something that shows your love. In this case actions are more powerful than words. Again in goes back to the whole "in a given situation thing."

Being a minor pacifist, I would definitely prefer words. If someone makes me angry, I'm not going to go punch them in the face... I'm gonna blog about it on my xanga. That's the way i deal with my problems, and so far so good.

IN CONCLUSION. Actions and words are best when they're combined together. It helps to say/write what you think, but no one will ever believe you unless you step up and show them. Actions can't be better than words, and vice versa. It takes a harmony of both to truly make a point.

ta ta kids