Don't Just Do Something

I know I have mentioned this advice before: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” I heard an Oprah Winfrey quote: “When you don’t know what to do, do nothing.”

I have commented before on the fact that as quotations enter general circulation, they are honed to their essence and are rarely a precise match for the original; the folk version is usually pithier, yet has the same message.

The masses may be asses, but when it comes to the game of Telephone that is the oral tradition, they seem to be pretty good editors. Actually many editors I’ve known were asses…

The actual quotation begins (and then goes on), “When you don’t know what to do, my best advice is to do nothing until clarity comes. Getting still, being able to hear your own voice and not the voices of the world, quickens clarity. Once you decide what you want, you make a commitment to that decision.”