Ghandi once implored humanity to “be the change we wish to see in the world.”

We think about this every time we walk past the protesters at the nascent “Occupy Boston” campsite near our offices in downtown Boston.

We have no issue with these largely peaceful protests, in and of themselves. It is our right, after all, to peaceably assemble and to reasonably speak our minds. These are rights we all should exercise at some point or another, if only because we can.

No, our problem with the growing “Occupy” movements lies not in their existence, but rather in their exhausting lack of any meaningful message or calls to action.

To be fair, the groups behind the movement are open about their own absence of any defining issue. They have repeatedly stated that they aren’t making any concrete demands, and aren’t railing against any one thing. Instead, they’re just angry with and disillusioned by, well, everything.

Protesters target Bank of America and Goldman Sachs, but can’t say what they would like to see the banking behemoths do differently – other than to somehow redistribute their wealth more equitably. They camp in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and ask where their bailout is, but inspire little confidence in the notion that if they were to receive said handout, they’d even begin to know what to do with it.

They demand jobs and debt relief, as if the ability to work and to provide for one’s self was something that should be a given, and not something that should be worked for. We’re not big on doling out unsolicited advice, but we won’t hesitate to say that sleeping in tents in the rain, making cardboard signs, creating clever slogans and walking barefoot through a city park might be cathartic, but none of it is helping anyone land a job.

These tantrums seem like the petulant cries of spoiled children with nothing better to do, yelling and screaming to get their way because they don’t know how else to act.

And what’s worse, it’s all too familiar. There is nothing changed in these cries for change.

In their indecisiveness, this group of mostly young people bears a striking resemblance to that which they seem to dislike the most: The Washington “establishment.”

Both parties are quick to identify what’s wrong, eager to attack what they perceive to be egregiously misguided policies. But when pressed to offer solutions or to act in any meaningful way, both go uncharacteristically silent.

The protesters demand action, but don’t like the actions they’ve seen. They demand personal bailouts and bemoan what they see as our slow slide into economic and social depression, but condemn the same kinds of bailouts that actually helped stave off a real depression.

Our lawmakers demand that we tighten our belt, that we stop spending and start saving. But when it comes down to it, none of them have the courage to enact meaningful entitlement reform, to stop funding pricey overseas interventions and to eliminate unnecessary, but politically popular, earmarks.

In short, neither side is being the kind of change they wish to see in the world – unless the world they want to see is one in which work can be blown off in favor of urban campouts, or one where a deficit can be reduced simply by adding to it.

The time for this kind of indecisiveness has passed. Don’t just demand reform – tell us how you’d like to see it enacted. Don’t just say we spend too much – put away your checkbook, first.

The world needs a change alright, and that change starts with actions, not the same tired words scrawled on cardboard or spouted by talking heads.

Ghandi didn’t inspire a nation to free itself from imperialism through speeches alone. He lived his words, and inspired millions of others to live theirs, too.

It’s high time we did the same. It’s time to stop simply preaching, and start practicing.