The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.
— Nadia Boulanger

Autumn path in Luxembourg Garden

Photo by Jane Grey

"Music is a means of rapid transportation."
— John Cage


“Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.”
— George Bernard Shaw


"The only thing you have to release
in order to get what you want,
is your story about why you can't have it."
— Source Unknown

"If better is to come, good must stand aside."
— Carl Jung


"Stay hungry,
Stay foolish."
—The Whole Earth Catalog
October, 1974


"Until one has loved an animal,
a part of one's soul remains unawakened."
— Anatole France


"Who thinks that they can kill time
without injuring eternity?"
— Henry David Thoreau


"Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love."
— Lao Tzu


“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely,
of facts and happenings. It consists mainly
of the storm of thoughts that is forever
blowing through one's head.”
— Mark Twain


“When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty.
I think only how to solve the problem.
But when I've finished, if the solution isn't beautiful,
I know it's wrong.”
— Buckminster Fuller


“If you think dogs can't count, try putting
three dog biscuits in your pocket and then
giving Fido only two of them.”
— Phil Pastoret


“Begin at the beginning
and go on till you come to the end;
then stop.”
— Lewis Carroll


“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”
— Japanese Proverb

 

“There is a time for work. And a time for love.
That leaves no other time.”
— Coco Chanel

“We judge ourselves by our intentions;
others judge us by our actions.”
— author unknown

“God gives food to every bird, but does not throw it in the nest.”
— New England Proverb

“Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the longer run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
    — Helen Keller

“We are what we repeatedly do.  
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle

  "Housework, if done right,
Will kill you."
    —Erma Bombeck

“Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love
to a woman because she waxed the linoleum —
"My God, the floor's immaculate.
Lie down, you hot bitch."
— Joan Rivers

“Try not.  
Do.
Or do not.
There is no try.”
    — Yoda, The Jedi Master in Star Wars


“Lord, I want to be up in my heart.”
    —Moby


“Leave every soul the braver and happier
for having met you.”
    — God Calling

“If the only prayer you said
in your whole life was ‘thank you,’
that would suffice.” 
— Meister Eckhart

“The most beautiful thing we can experience
is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science."
    —Albert Einstein

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers,  the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary."
—Sir Cecil Beaton, portrait photographer


“There are risks and costs to action.
But they are far less than the long range risks
of comfortable inaction.”
— John F. Kennedy
35th president of the United States,
born 29 May, 1917

This life therefore is not righteousness

but growth in righteousness

not health but healing

not being but becoming...

We are not yet what we shall be

but we are growing toward it.

The process is not yet finished

but it is going on.

This is not the end

but it is the road.

All does not yet gleam in glory

but all is being purified.

— Martin Luther

as quoted in Grace Points

by Jane Rubietta 

 quotes on gratitude

quotes on hope

 Do the thing

and you will

have  the power.

 
I love this quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson because I find it so motivating.

DO the thing — do the thing — do the thing — DO!  It means action, and action counts. Ever hear the old adage that says talk is cheap?  Well, talk IS cheap because it’s easy.  Ideas are even cheaper — they’re free.  But it’s action that brings about results. It’s action that makes things happen, and which changes the world.

Action takes effort, it can take daring and courage. It can mean sacrifice and risk. Action is the price we pay for what we want.

Now I believe profoundly in the power of thought and the importance of words.   But I love this quote because it gets to the point: beyond thought, and after the word, there is deed.  Deed — or doing  — is a critical component of all acts of creation.

DO the thing.  What thing?

The thing that you have been dreaming of doing.

The thing you secretly wish you were doing.            

The thing you’ve been waiting until someday to do.

The thing is the very thing that you think you can not do.

Like what?

Like change your career

or buy an apartment

or have a romance

or learn to play the piano

or write a book

or get into shape

or go back to school

or help the world in some big or modest way.

Note the quote does not say, wait until the economy gets perfectly stable to start your new business.

It does not say, wait until you stop wanting food to start a diet.

It does not way, wait until you get smarter, thinner, richer or younger to look for a new friend or romance.

It does not say, wait until the grip of death is staring you in the face to make the jump into a new life that you have been thinking about for twenty years.

It does not say, “TRY to do the thing, and you will have the power.”  There is no try.  As Yoda, the Jedi Master from Star Wars, said “Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.” In other words, you can make excuses or you can succeed. You can’t have both.

Why do we not do? Why do we wait?
For lots of reasons and I’ll cite just a few:

If we wait, we can stay in our safe fantasies where we don’t have to face failure and we don’t have to face ourselves.

We wait because we think we have plenty of time. In fact, no one knows how much time they have. Many of us don’t accept the fact that our days on earth are numbered. Limited. Finite. We don’t like to think about death, we avoid death and as a result we avoid the doing that would mean living our potential. 

We wait because we fear we can’t have what we want, what we REALLY want. We wait because we don’t KNOW we have the power to create what we want. We haven’t been taught that we HAVE the power. We haven’t been taught how to use our power. In fact, most of us have been taught directly or indirectly that power is dangerous and therefore bad. We’ve been taught to deny our power. We’ve been told that it doesn’t matter what we do, one person can’t make a difference anyway.  Where does that leave us?  Feeling powerless.

Uncertain times provoke sadness, anger and fear in many of us partly because we cannot control the world.  Feelings of powerlessness run through many of us like a low-grade fever, eroding our energy and spirits.

And so in these uncertain times, dreams get put on hold. The irony is that life has always been uncertain. Don’t let this week's world crisis be an excuse not to be who and what you want to be.

DO the thing and you will HAVE the power. Does that mean that you GET the power when you finally do the thing? No. It means the power was always there. By power I don’t mean the power over other people to use and abuse them.  By power I mean your inherent  capacity, your inner strength, your innate potential,  your natural ability to create what you want.  This is the true, essential power that resides within you already. You are born with the power to make your dreams come true or you would not have the dream to begin with. 

So when Emerson said do the thing and you will have the power, he meant that in the doing you will turn your potential into your reality.  You will move from concept to fact.  Do the thing and you will stop wondering or dreaming or hoping you can do the thing, you will stop fearing that you can’t do the thing. Do the thing and you will know —  you will know — you will KNOW that you CAN do the thing. You will know that you DO have the power.

What do you want to experience?  Is it love?  Passion?   Justice? A better world?  The satisfaction of contributing to a greater level?

Don’t wait. Don’t wait for the wars to end. Don't wait for terrorism to go away. Don't wait for the economic crisis to be over. Don’t wait for certainty and security because those are illusions.

Don’t wait until you are ready. Waiting until you're ready only means waiting until you're brave enough. Don’t wait until it gets easy. Don’t wait until someone gives you permission — not even me. Don't wait until you’re not scared. Don’t wait until someday, because someday never comes. Someday is now.

DO the thing and you will have the power.

Do the thing and you will HAVE the power.

Do the thing and you WILL have the power.

Dare to DO.

Dare to begin.

Dare to do what you dream you can do, and you will KNOW what has always been true.

© 2003, 2008, 2021 by Jane Grey
 

Jane is available to speak at your organization

on the power of action and  doing, incorporating her speech

"Do the Thing and You Will Have the Power."