“Right now, I could pull out my gun, and shoot them,” James, a former mental hospital patient, thinks to himself as he walks into the dark, cold, and people filled movie theatre for the third time today. Similar to James, we all have thoughts that prevent and cause us to make life changing actions. Our thoughts describe our true character, even though the thinker can only hear the soft whispers. Although some people argue actions define our person, meaning it is more important than our thoughts, it is truly our thoughts that are more important, for they push us to complete (or not complete) actions and they reveal our true feelings with the first idea that pops in our head.

Some will argue actions describe a person’s character and being as a whole, such as a thief being a low, dirty, repulsing scoundrel. However, those people forget to comment on how and why the action was made. The answer is simple; Past experiences and moral, which seeps into our thoughts, helping us make rational decisions. For example, take Jean Valjean, the protagonist of the musical and enormous book Les Miserable. Valjean was taken into slavery for nineteen years as punishment for stealing a loaf of bread and multiple attempts of escaping. Why did he commit such crimes, though, and was he really as bad as Javert, Valjean’s antithesis, thought he was? It was a rough time in France, when his nephew was beginning to starve and his family did not have enough money or food to support him. What else could he have done, other than steal a loaf of bread to save his nephew’s life and keep him alive? It was Jean Valjean’s thoughts that contributed to his actions and saved a poor boy’s life, but these actions also caused him to have the new name of “Prisoner 24601” and a reputation of a low life thief who is greedy, selfish, and downright bad. Also, another example would be Dr.Jekyll in the famous Novella Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. Jekyl appears to be a well-rounded gentleman, with everything he ever wanted. However, if we stroll past the fancy parties, the social status, and the smiles and walk into his mind, we find that his thoughts reveal something else entirely; A lust for pleasure, desire for wrongdoings, and anger in which he could very well do if he pleases. But what causes Jekyll to not do these things as himself? It is himself, the opposing thoughts in his brain telling him ‘no’, although that does not mean he wants to do the ‘dirty deeds done dirt cheap’ any less. However, his desire takes over him and becomes all he thinks about, causing him to create the potion that will allow Jekyll to indulge in these selfish desires. Jekyll’s thoughts, although his actions spoke differently, were uncontrollable and the very reason Jekyll performed his actions. Therefore, your actions do not define others as a person, but rather the thoughts that cause the actions to ever occur in the first place.

Furthermore, actions towards others don’t typically express what we first believe about a person , but it is the thoughts that we would rather keep to ourselves because overall, it doesn’t do good for image, unless a certain someone is a blabbermouth and says whatever they believe without thinking it over. For example, take a woman who is taking her usual morning walk in the bustling streets of New York city, a place where millions of diverse people live. Walking past this sophisticated woman, is a young, energetic teenage girl with booming headphones, multicolored short hair, and ripped skinny jeans, along with a band shirt. The teen smiles at the woman, who sweetly smiles back and says, “Have a good day!” In reality, this woman’s first thought of the girl was “How could anyone let their child dress up as ridiculous and immature as that?” Although the woman smiled and ever told the teen to have a good day, the first thought she had of her was cruel, judgmental, and overall close minded. Therefore, actions do not express what we first think about a person, because we actually have time to think about what we show and do not show.

In spite of the fact that James had multiple occurring thoughts about shooting the innocent bystanders in the movie theatre so much that he walked in three times to do so, James decided that he should not after many hours of thinking it through. While actions are definitely important, our thoughts and desires control them. As Hamlet said in Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet, “…For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”