Look Beyond The Words And Into The Actions

Often times when trying to discern new ideas and beliefs from people I find it hard to know what to take and what to leave. Recently I have discovered something that seems to work quite well for me. When you look into things like beliefs, God(s), science and things of this nature you will notice that the values and messages behind these things directly affect one's lifestyle. Therefore the people that are on to the truth should be complete people leading quality lives.

Value Systems

For instance, Christians are taught to be loving, honest, self-sacrificing as well as many other things. Atheists and scientific people are very interested in logic, nature and science. Buddhists are more into peace, self-mastery and meditation. Everybody and culture has their own things they choose to follow.

The point that I'm getting at is that each object people draw their lifestyle from shows directly in their own actions towards themselves and others. Because of this, it seems reasonable to conclude that the people who are living the best lifestyles generally will hold more weight as far as individual growth and their credibility.

How do you decide what's best?

I know people will mention that "best" is subjective so I would like to clarify that a bit without going into too much detail. As humans we do have an almost instinctual foundation of truths that we all can agree on (there's always exceptions though). We all agree that we would much rather let someone live their life out to the fullest than kill them. We all agree that it is important to educate and take care of our children. We all agree that it is better to be stress free than to be stressed. We agree that is is better to give than to receive. We agree that it is better to work for something than steal it.

Get to know the actions

What I'm saying is that when torn between how to interpret somebody's beliefs and values often times it can be useful to look beyond the words and into the actions. Spend a couple days with them. Spend a week with them. The more you get to know somebody, the more you will know their true colors and their true lifestyle. By understanding their lifestyle you will understand how successful their belief system really is at developing (or stagnating) their development and the development of others around them. We've all heard the saying, "actions speak louder than words" and for the most part it's true. Sure words often have elements of truth entangled in the mess, but it is much harder to cheat actions than it is words.

Conclusion

Watch other people's lifestyles and you will begin to discern the wise from the unwise. I think Jesus had it right when he said, "Those who know all, but are lacking in themselves, are utterly lacking."