Action and words

I was traveling by a SETC bus in Tamil Nadu and the bus passed by a political meeting where the speaker was promising Heaven on Earth once he came to power. Which was an ironical time for my eyes to land on this Thirukkural written in the bus. (Those who know Tamil Nadu will know that all government buses have one or two Thirukkurals written in them).

Solludhal yaarkkum eliya ariyavaam solliya vannam seyal - Tirukkural

Speech is easy for anyone; what's rare is to do as you say - Loose Translation.

THAT in the context of a political speech was very funny indeed. I mean, it essentially says, "Making promises is easy; delivering is difficult" and, in the backdrop, a politician was making promises!

But THAT's not all that it was saying really. I mean, you could interpret it as, "Giving instructions is easy. Carrying them out is rare." Now THAT strikes close to home. I mean, like, "I want this done and I want this done yesterday" is sort of easy to say. But tough to do unless you know time travel. (I know, I know, it is metaphorical but, come on, how often have deadlines been realistic?) It is a fact that a lot of times, the so-called instructions are only a wish-list and no real help for anyone who actually has to do the job. Like, "This should be zero defect, scalable, yada yada" Easy to say; tough to do.

Worse still are the things that we say related to character. Working without regard to outcomes, not being judgmental about people, hating the sin and not the sinner and so on. I mean, easy to say, easier by far to share memes but to live up to that? Absolutely impossible to actually do for most people.

Which is why some things keep going round and round forever as memes. EVERYONE agrees with the words, nobody is able to translate it to action!