After talking about potty mouths and toilet humour last week it got me to thinking about other phrases that we use, and actually, how wrong they are.
Take “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it”.
The way I see it, you don’t have to lie in it, you just have to deal with it, and in dealing with it you can fling back the covers and go and buy another bed. You don’t have to live your whole life in that bed, get rid of it, change the sheets and linen, and change who you share it with. You do not have to stick with a decision that has proven itself to be wrong.
CHANGE IT!
The other thing that people say is “don’t have regrets”.
How can we not have regrets? There is stupid shit I did in my teens that I still feel that twang over, my head hangs and shakes side to side at the stupidity of my choice, and I’m like, ugh, why did I do that?
I think it’s a good indicator of how things work. By regretting a choice you can learn to not make the same one. By feeling those feelings you remember how it felt so you won’t continue making the same stupid choice.
There is no possible way that there is a person on this planet that does not have regrets, even just one. Or is it just that at their age (it always seems to be older people who say this phrase) they don’t remember the feelings they had over the regret, so they no longer have it?
I don’t know, but it seems to me these days that phrases just don’t cut the mustard any more and don’t mean what they once did because I can debate and argue a phrase to death.
Have you guys come across a phrase that no longer seems to work in the current environment of being human?
Plowing Through Life (Martha) says
I agree. Everyone has regrets. I try not to dwell on them or stay stuck in the past. Learning from them and not repeating them is what happens.
L.J. Diva says
Absolutely agree Martha
Denis Harry says
How about "You're not older, just wiser" ? Joan Rivers once said if you're stupid at 25, you're still stupid at 75, rather than sinking into becoming an idiot.
L.J. Diva says
Absolutely Denis. Isn't that like the line from Forest Gump, 'stupid is as stupid does'. Some people will be stupid for their whole life, while others grow a brain and a clue. And I thank God that I grew a brain and got on with it.