When talk is done only action is left

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

We went to marriage counselling about two dozen times over three years, and some sessions were extended. We talked so much. We listened so much. We wrestled long and hard with many issues.

But it wasn’t until we stopped and began to actually implement what we’d talked about and had been taught that we began to make progress. In our fourth year! And I’m sure that was the advice of our wise and trusted counsellor:

Go and do what can only be done.
Stop talking about it.
Stop being hearers and now go and be a doer.

None of us likes to hear those words, for they challenge our integrity and they convict us around hypocrisy.

Sometimes it takes a while to get to that place of, ‘Yes, I’ve heard this before… too many times!’

I don’t think we liked leaving those rooms thinking that we were on our own. But she was right. Our counsellor had done all she could do. We knew what we needed to do. We just needed to do it.

Much of what ails us in life is the knowledge that we ought to do something which we never quite have the will of commitment to do.

Finally, when we knew we were on our own, that there was nobody else to turn to, that we had done all the work of identification and assessment and rectification, we had to own what we could only do on our own.

When talk is done, and we know it’s done by the way we repeat ourselves, there is only action left. And oh, what a day it is! It’s momentous and tough and uncomfortable, and liberating and empowering and habit-breaking.

We honour those who invest in our lives most when we ignore what they say least. Those who sow their wisdom into our lives deserve a return on their investment.

It doesn’t matter what we say if we don’t do what we agree together is good and right and appropriate action. Especially as it pertains to others, like within marriage.