Sayings

     I think most of us during our lifetime have heard different “sayings”:  “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” [Winston Churchill]  “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” [Mark Twain]  “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” [Confucius]  "Winners never quit and Quitters never win."  [Vince Lombardi]  And I could go on.  You probably have your favorite saying from someone who has been an influence within your life.

     But in this blog post I want to talk more about those “in house” sayings we’ve gotten from people we have grown up with or from family members.  Those types of sayings that at times maybe don’t make a lot of sense or there are those so logical that you simply cannot find any argument with them.

     To site a few examples:  When I was growing up we had a housekeeper who took care of us kids when we were younger and not in school while our parents worked.  Our housekeeper always told me: “Every day, you go out to play.  Put on your shirt so you won’t get hurt.”  Now I never really understood exactly what she meant by this because most of the time I got hurt while playing outside, I HAD my shirt on!  So her saying didn’t make much sense to me, but she would always tell me the same line.

     Now my father on the other hand, while not a very well educated man according to schooling, had a very profound saying he would always tell me:  “Son, if you live long enough, you’ll be old!”  Let’s face it:  It’s hard to dispute the logic of this statement!  If any person lives long enough how would they deny their advancing age?  It would be impossible!

     Here’s one my mother used to say and I had to do some research to find out what the meaning of it was.  “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”   “This idiomatic expression is showing an avoidable error in which something good is eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad, or in other words, rejecting the favorable along with the unfavorable.”

     The idea of throwing the baby out with the bath water might be inspired by the relatively few baths taken by people in Europe before the 16th century. Baths were often thought to be unhealthy, and they were difficult to prepare, because the bath water had to be drawn and heated. The difficulty of preparing bath water often meant that the same water might be used for a whole family’s bath, and the baby was frequently bathed last. At this point, the bath water might be quite dirty and might obscure view of the baby. A mother wouldn’t want to mistakenly discard the baby with the dirty, murky water — not that this was likely to occur.

    You might be amazed at the “truth” or “fallacy” behind some of the things that you are told.  Keep searching for truth.  Keep seeking to find understanding.  But never forget, “we’re only human!”

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"There is nothing more unsettling than 

the question you never ask!"