Thoughts

      There is an old saying “It is the thought that counts.”  Well, the “old saying” may not be as old as you think it is.  The proverb is credited to Henry van Dyke Jr, a Presbyterian clergyman.  He was also a writer and poet, and is said to have coined the phrase about 1906: “It is not the gift, but the thought that counts.”  As with many proverbs and idioms, only the latter half of the phrase is generally quoted, the listener is expected to supply the beginning of the phrase for himself.

     There is also another saying: “You can’t have it both ways.”  When someone tells you this they are trying to tell you that you have to choose between two things and cannot do or have them both.  Yet, that is often the very thing we want as humans.  At least when it comes to having “our thoughts count.”  What could I possibly mean by that?

     Let’s consider two different examples and try to understand.  First, when the thought is to our advantage.  Here we may be in a situation, perhaps as parents with our children, perhaps as co-workers at our jobs, or whatever the case may be.  We have given a gift to someone and it is not exactly what we had hoped to be able to give them.  Maybe we waited too long in procuring the gift and the item we had truly wanted was no longer available or perhaps we simply did not have enough money to purchase the item we had wanted to get, so we were obliged to get something less expensive.  However matters had worked out, we probably gave them the gift and upon their opening it, we said: “Remember, it’s the thought that counts.”  Thus implying to them that although the gift may not be up to the caliber or price tag that we had desired (or also perhaps them) we did think of getting them something!  That is the situation where we want to be looked at in a better light than perhaps the gift puts us in.

     The other scenario is that of not wanting our thoughts to condemn us or put us in the suspicious circumstance of appearing guilty.   We might say something like: “Don’t hold my thoughts against me.”  There are times we do this to ourselves saying that we have been having some disturbing, awful thoughts that make us feel hopeless, unloved or even unlovable and we don’t want such thoughts held against us.

    Probably the worst situation would be one that involves the police.  You have probably seen those television crime shows in which the police have apprehended a suspect and began reading them their Miranda Rights: “You have the right to remain silent.  Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”  That is probably not the time to start letting your “thoughts” spill out of your mouth into words that you will probably regret later.  It could well be that your “thoughts” put into speech could be very damaging to you at a future time.

     But recall that we can’t have it both ways.  We cannot have our thoughts as an excuse for what we don’t do and yet have our thoughts as an ally for what we do!  One way or the other we are going to have to face the situation and deal with it the best we can.  It would always be our desire that we can “pick and choose” the way we want things to be done and many times that is exactly what we can do.  But most of the times we must make a choice and that seems to be the problem because we’re only human!    

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"Your thoughts may not be conceivable.

Your intentions are!"