Famous Sayings That Changed Your Life

[Dagan]

This could almost be considered a game, but I posted it here instead. Here's the gist: list a famous saying / old cliche' phrase and then tell how it literally and/or figuratively changed your life. I'll shall get it started.....

"Watch where you're going!" - I heard this a lot as a kid, and to this day, I seriously watch my feet most of the time I'm walking anywhere. Oops. Haha.

 

[Outdated]

"Watch where you're going!" - I heard this a lot as a kid, and to this day, I seriously watch my feet most of the time I'm walking anywhere. Oops. Haha.

That was a big one for us too, and even more specifically - Watch where you put your feet! Not so important in cities but in rural areas there's a lot of things you can step on or in that are dangerous.

A huge one in Australia is a cultural thing - Fair go! This was very commonly used when I was a kid but you don't hear it so much these days, it's a call to make you stop and think about what you're saying or doing. There's a few colloquial variations on it too - Fair suck of the sauce bottle son!

There were so many common sayings that I grew up with, most of them English or Scottish with a few Aussie ones tacked on. There's two that had a huge impact on me as a kid, they both appealed to my sense of independence and my pride in my self sufficiency.

The first is from my great grandmother, an old Geordie woman:
Ah well. What we haven't got we can always do without.
When in a better mood she had another variation on that:
If we had some eggs we could have ham and eggs if we had some ham.

The other one is straight out practical advice from my father:
You can't live a white collar lifestyle on a blue collar income.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Not a saying, but something from Hunter S. Thompson that resonates with me.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”​

 

[Nervous Rex]

"Not my pig, not my farm." Sounds stupid but it really helps me to let go of stuff that isn't my fault and isn't my problem.

"In every relationship, the only thing you can change is yourself." You cannot change other people. You can change how you react to them and how you interact with them. If you want to break a cycle of bad interactions, you have to change your side of the actions - maybe that means not interacting or maybe that means interacting differently, but the change is entirely up to you.

"The person who cares the least has the most power." - If you care more about dating someone than they care about dating you, then they hold all the power and it's up to you to convince them. If one person in a marriage cares more about keeping the house clean than another, then the person who cares is the one that will do all the cleaning. If you go car shopping when you desperately need a car, the car salesman has all the power - if you go browsing when you don't need a car, you have all the power.

"It's not you versus your spouse when there's a problem, it's you and your spouse versus the problem."

"If not me, then who?" - something I say to myself when I see a problem that someone should do something about. Garbage in the street in front of my house? If I'm not willing to pick it up, then who will? Wish someone would stack the chairs up after a meeting? If not me, then who do I expect to do it? Sitting down to dinner and no one has water (or other drinks) - who should I expect to get them if I'm not willing to?