I have mixed feelings about cliches. I mean, they are a complicated business. Some are harmful. Others are harmless, but must be avoided in order for other people to think you’re clever. And yet others should be passionalety embraced, because liking them is fun and liking them ironically is a way to prove just how cool you are.
The kind of cliches I hate and think myself above usually come in the variety of sayings that people repeat because they sound good, but either don’t make sense or are simply not helpful. When I was in high school, I said I was going to write a book of all these meaningless sayings and publish them as if they were original or the the least bit worthwhile. Part of the reason I’m not good at small talk or, you know, general human interaction is that I cannot make myself say these things that people say. You know, stuff like it will all work out in the end. I would rather stare at a person awkwardly that say something like that.
Aww, but lately I have stopped resisting like a willful teenager and have begun to find meaning in some of these. I do, however, emphasize some.
The first is that old reliable take one day at a time aka cross that bridge when you get to it. This generally seems like bad advice. Plan ahead is better and it comes more naturally to me. I see now that take one day at a time is not advice for high schoolers, but rather for people who have a lot going on and several things to deal with each day. It has only really begun to make sense to me this semester. It’s not that you shouldn’t plan ahead. It’s more like you cannot worry about everything at once and if there is no end to the stream of crap you’ve got to deal with, then the only way to be productive and stay sane is to worry just about what you can do today. The number of email addresses I have to keep up with is a sign of the number of hats I wear. If I tried to wear them all at once, then I’d go crazy. Instead, I check the work email addresses only when I’m actually in the respective offices, and when I’m there, that’s what I’m focused on. I do what needs to be done that day and then I leave. I worry about the assignment due that week, because even if I start stressing about the paper due next month, I’m not going to start that early anyway.
I think some of the anxiety I’ve been dealt with was a result of worrying about everything at once, anticipating problems I couldn’t yet do anything about–somehow thinking that worrying was the same was doing something. I feel much calmer with this approach. It takes self discipline to get things done in the time allotted, but then those things are off of my shoulders and I don’t have to worry about them until it’s time for the next task. This is the peaceful and productive mode I’ve been trying to find for years and somehow this semester it found me.
This next requires some serious backtracking on my part. It’s don’t worry about what other people think of you. Okay, here’s the thing. This obviously doesn’t work as an unqualified statement, because any reasonable, sane, kind, and self aware person does care what other people think of her. And you need other people’s perspectives on you in order to better understand yourself and, I think, grow as a person. If you don’t care what other people think of you, then you’re probably a punk. Or, you’re one of those people who’s always proclaiming so loudly that you don’t care what other people think of you when the truth is that you really really care. I have in the past been very critical of these people, and while I think they could use a dose of self awareness, I get that what they’re really doing is trying to convince themselves not to care. Because caring too much what other people think of you is debilitating, especially because you don’t really know what they think–you only know what you think they think when the truth is that they surely don’t spend as much time thinking about you as you spend thinking about what they think of you. The result is time wasted worrying–time that could have been spent doing something productive, something that will make you happy, something that will really get people talking about you..
Knowing that we all care what other people think of us, I’d taken the cliche to the other extreme and just accepted that as the way it is. But that was a mistake too, because I let it limit me. I used it as a reason not to boldly pursue my interests. It might be the way it is, but that doesn’t mean I have to passively accept it. I can declare to myself don’t worry about what other people think of you and in that moment take a big risk. It’s not a one time fix, but it’s a mantra that works over time.
Cliches are exaggerations and it’s silly to think that I responded to such extremes by being extreme myself. It’s taken me a long time to realize that finding truth in something does not mean accepting it completely. And, hey, just because it’s unoriginal doesn’t mean it’s meaningless.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post Ashley!
I try very hard to just take one day at a time otherwise I know I will be utterly overwhelmed by all the things i have to do. But it’s hard to do so sometimes…
I realized at some point that cliches, as overused and trite seeming as they are, come from somewhere true for the most part. They must exist for a reason, right?
What a well-thought post, Ashley. We all use cliches and throw them around like confetti, but we rarely think of their intended meaning and, moreover, their meaning to us. You can now use these cliches confidently, knowing that they have specific meaning to you!
This IS a very good post! (as others have already said). I think its so true.. and I’ve thought that before, that all cliches are silly, BUT that they must exist for a reason, and so some of them must be wise.
My grandma is a big sayer of crazy sayings; so whenever I hear such sayings like that it really makes me think of her and how she’s a little silly..
“stuff like it will all work out in the end. I would rather stare at a person awkwardly that say something like that.”
One thousand times yes. So much is said because, you know, it fills a blank. I’d much rather just leave the space blank, too, unless something seems to really fit.
You’re right, though: cliches are often overused, but that doesn’t mean they’re always useless.
I like your thinking! I need to teach some of my students about cliches. They are very much overused in a lot of their writing (and now I’m wondering if I overuse them too…)
As much as I roll my eyes at cliched statements, I can’t get away from using them myself. Great post-