When Words Don’t Walk: The Medicine of Action

10-23-2025

By Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D. | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps | Internal Medicine | HHOM LLC

When words no longer walk, medicine becomes movement. Awareness becomes action.

Poem — The Quiet Answer

In the rush of a thousand voices,

I lost the sound of my own.

Only in stillness did I hear

the truth beneath the noise—

not what I said I wanted,

but what I was finally ready to do.

---Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Introduction — The Noise Between Knowing and Doing

Everyone alive carries awareness. Even when it hides beneath distraction or fatigue, it’s still there—an undercurrent of consciousness that never sleeps.And with that awareness comes freedom: the freedom to choose.

Yet most people live caught between yesterday’s regret and tomorrow’s ambition. Their minds stay loud, rehearsing possibilities, but rarely entering the quiet space where choices become action.

I’ve written often about the health of purpose and the healing power of meaning. But today’s question is simpler and more demanding: “Do you know what you truly want?” It sounds easy. Yet for most, it isn’t. Words come fast. Action comes slow.

Words Are Weightless Until You Move

Over the decades, I’ve listened to hundreds of patients describe the changes they planned to make—diet, exercise, relationships, sleep. They meant it. But when they returned months later, nothing had shifted. Their words were sound without substance, thought without energy.

I’ve also known people who declared their dreams for years, sometimes decades—speaking them so often they began to believe speaking was progress. But words can become a tranquilizer. They soothe us into believing that wanting is the same as working. The truth is harsher and more liberating: If you don’t act, you don’t really want it.

Silence Is Where the Real Want Appears

This isn’t judgment—it’s anatomy. The human mind is noisy by design, a storm of signals racing between past and future. The only way to hear the real desire beneath the chatter is to step into silence.

Silence is not absence. It’s medicine.It’s the quiet where awareness surfaces and truth begins to speak—not through declarations, but through calm conviction.

I stumbled for years chasing achievements that looked right on paper but never filled me. Then one day, I stopped running and asked, What do I actually want? The answer wasn’t in language—it was in feeling. It came when I found the love of my life. It came when I remembered the purpose I named as a boy—to heal, to write, to serve. That awareness didn’t whisper. It directed. And I followed.

Action: The Pulse of Meaning

In the body, awareness without movement is paralysis. In life, desire without action is the same. If you repeat the same wish year after year, it’s time to ask: Do I really want this—or do I only want to want it?

Awareness gives us the freedom to choose, but only action makes us alive. The first breath of transformation happens the moment you do something, no matter how small, that aligns your words with your will.

That’s when healing begins. That’s when you start to walk your talk.

Closing Reflection — The Medicine of Stillness

In a world that rewards noise, it takes courage to be quiet. But in that quiet, you’ll find what no distraction can offer: clarity, direction, and peace.

Stop speaking your desires into the wind. Sit still long enough to hear the one that never leaves you—and then, move toward it.

Closing Reflection — The Medicine of Stillness

In a world that rewards noise,

it takes courage to be quiet.

But in that quiet,

you’ll find what no distraction can offer:

clarity, direction, and peace.

When the mind finally rests,

the truth rises on its own.

It doesn’t need to shout or convince.

It simply is.

That’s the moment awareness becomes action —

when the person you’ve always been

finally meets the life you were meant to live.

---Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

—Dr. Howard Friedman, M.D.

Board-Certified | Internal Medicine | Veteran | U.S. Army Medical Corps

Founder of Howard’s House of Medicine (HHOM LLC)

https://www.hhomllc.com

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: Why do we say we want change but rarely act on it?

A: Because speaking provides temporary relief. The mind mistakes expression for execution. Real change demands friction — that moment when words meet resistance and must move through it. Until then, “wanting” remains a story, not a decision.

Q: How can silence help us know what we truly want?

A: Silence filters the noise of borrowed goals. When distractions fade, desire is revealed — not as a fantasy, but as a feeling that insists on movement. The quieter you become, the clearer your direction becomes.

Q: What is the medicine of action?

A: It’s alignment — when awareness, intention, and movement finally agree. It heals because it restores integrity between thought and behavior. Every time you act on truth, you close the gap between who you are and who you say you are.