AKT

AKT

“You can only understand real Action through action itself – Knowledge through knowledge… and Truth through truth.” I read this quote on the morning of October 31, 2024, and again on October 2, 2025, in the “Little Book of Wisdom,” by Maryam Mafi.

On Thursday January 8, 2026, I read the quote again, this time in an old journal, the repository of blog starters.

According to the journal, October 31, 2024, was filled with plans. The check marks indicated much was accomplished. The day would have ended without any check marks had I not understood that planning to act is not real action. Recording an appointment in the calendar is AN action but it does not accomplish the recorded task. Thinking about what to write doesn’t write a future post and reading a quote can be a catalyst for action. However, catalysts without action are useless. Real action is energy, movement, and motion. Real knowledge is not only understanding but practicing what is known and understanding truth without living truth is “mambo jumbo” (meaningless language). I am not a fan of “mambo jumbo,” so here’s my real-life example of action, knowledge, and truth.

I HAVE DECLARED THAT I WILL BECOME UNENCUMBERED (travel/live lighter) IN 2026…traveling lighter materially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I fully understand how to and the benefits of traveling lighter in every one of these areas. I have been tackled by the common obstacles to success and have given up repeatedly. What makes this time different? I don’t know. I know that it feels different.

The word, unencumbered, arrived as I sat writing about holding on too tightly to things. I remembered a dress I wore to my mother’s 2002 funeral. The dress shortened and altered a few times to accommodate my shifting weight, still hung in my closet, and had not been worn for two years. Why was I holding on to it? I stood up and left off writing about what I planned to do, walked to the bedroom closet, removed the dark gray wool and linen blended two-piece dress from the hanger, and deposited it in a bag to be given away. Every day for the next few weeks, an item was deposited in that bag. Christmas week, I dropped off the bag at an organization that re-integrates released inmates back into society. Knowledge and the truth that I have more than enough merged to prompt real action. Maybe this is why it feels different this time.

One last thought, I recently completed a self-portrait collage primarily composed of photos taken in a digital photography class. Simultaneously I was constructing another self-portrait composed of words. Perhaps the difference this time is that I have a deeper understanding of the truth of myself through the two self-portraits. Could it be that this is fueling the feeling? Only time and action will tell. (AKT? – ACT)

Proverbs 14:23

PONDER THIS THOUGHT--- Action should always be the goal.