A Few More Sayings That Should Exist
Gonna start dropping these into casual conversation, see what happens.
You won’t see the writing on the wall if you’re always looking up at the sky.
Sure, it’s great to daydream and live with your head in the cloud sometimes. It benefits us all. But if you don’t stay grounded and aware of what’s going on around you, you’ll have no way of anticipating when the other shoe is liable to drop — and you won’t be remotely prepared when you get metaphorically kicked in the dick. Keep dreaming for sure, but simultaneously keep your head on a swivel. It’s a vicious cockfight out there these days.
Don’t spend your life waiting for an anvil to come out of nowhere and hit you in the teeth.
Conversely, if you’re always waiting for that other boot to come down on your neck, you won’t get much enjoyment out of life, and you’ll probably eventually regret sitting around worrying about things that may never end up happening at all, or that end up being less significant than you predicted they might be. It’s crucial to find balance between entertaining cautious (occasionally realistic) pessimism and not allowing it to inhibit you.
You don’t need to revolutionize every ramen recipe.
There’s no need to go all-out all the time and try to make something better when what’s already on the table is good enough. Plus-ups are cool sometimes, but the original will often suffice. Nobody digs a one-upper.
You don’t need a ladder to reach the low-hanging fruit.
If you’re spending a lot of time on the lead-up to the ending of a story or to get to a punchline that doesn’t really warrant it, you may as well let it fly in a concise manner. Get to the point. Don’t bury the lede. Etc.
You can’t scrape the mustard off potato salad.
There are many things you can’t fix or change, and you just have to accept that. Sometimes it’s not even worth it to try, and there’s no shame in choosing your battles and recognizing when something is mostly a Sisyphean task, a juice that ain’t worth the squeeze.
Complete silence brings the loudest cacophony.
When it’s quiet and dark and no one is around, your own thoughts can become absolutely overwhelming and even deafening. They can take over if you don’t keep your composure. And while it’s great, necessary and cathartic to spend some time alone contemplating all kinds of things, you can’t let the worst of them live rent-free in your head.
A cult is a cult whether it starts in a cornfield or a corner store.
The day-to-day opportunities to be influenced by group-think or belief systems are vast and frequent, and it’s pertinent to be calculating and thoughtful when it comes into buying the systems or beliefs any organized crew happens to be shilling.
If you bread it and fry it you don’t have to slap it in the ass, too.
When something is done let it be done. You don’t have to keep adding more to it or changing elements of it. It might not be perfect, but sometimes good enough is the best it’s going to get and you may as well accept it.
You’re going for instant breakfast when there’s bacon at the buffet.
A healthy dose of Carnation or Ensure or whatever is good for you (I blindly assume), but sometimes you gotta live and go with the option that’s going to bring you more delight. Pragmatism has its place, but you best not forget about good ole’ fashioned pleasure and satisfaction. In moderation, of course. Or not. Up to you.
