Think Before You Leap

"No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking." - Voltaire

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." - Charles Caleb Colton

When you read the quote above, the translation in your mind should probably be, "Be careful who and what you imitate." For, if the sentiment of MR. Colton holds any value, it is surely that you are simply not progressing an idea or a concept when you mimic it, but you are conferring upon the originator an intentional or unintentional compliment You are endorsing not just the thought, but the thinker.

Be the thinker. Humankind's ability to think, to conceptualize and analyze, to opine, to agree, contradict, or modify all manner of notions, is at the root of what makes us just that; human. Wasting that gift, whether by squandering it for yourself or by condemning those you witness your repetition, is unforgivable. We owe it to ourselves and to others to be as skeptical as we are loud, as critical as we are verbose. Not blindly contradictory, but thoughtfully so. The time spent pondering what you espouse should be far greater than that spent expressing those tenets.