Many people seem to have confused clichés with platitudes.
It'll all come right in the end.
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
Many people seem to have confused clichés with platitudes.
I think you are wrong. I think that the phrase as it is used by the people who use it is intended to make some sort of statement advocating 'empowerment' or similar. I don't object to that usage, nor to the idea behind it - don't just moan, do something positive.
I'm pointing to the fact that personally, because I have a cussed and bloody-minded character, the use of such phrases makes me grit my teeth.
Like "You can live your dreams if you try hard enough!" Cobblers. Many people fail having tried much harder than some who succeeded just because that's the way the cookie crumbled. More accurate would be 'If you're talented and lucky, you will succeed whether you try hard or not', but no-one wants to hear that.
Yes - exactly. And while virtually everyone will light the candle, there's a whole catalogue of situations you see people in where there's a perfectly easy, obvious, sometimes effortless solution, and they don't take it - for any number of daft reasons. Hence the saying.
I don't envy you your dental bills
There's always exceptions, in both directions - but I think this holds true in a huge number of cases, yes. We could start qualifying the saying:
"You can live your dreams if you try hard enough for long enough, keep yourself open to opportunities, were born in the right country, and you don't get run over one day on your way to the bank" - I dunno - it loses a little punch. I prefer a touch of exaggeration - so long as the gist is helpful.
Make that incredibly lucky... that route doesn't work for many, and it often doesn't last...
Yes, all good points. This is a subjective feeling I have, rather than something which I am advocating for all.
I do hate the 'you can be anything if you try hard enough' because it simply isn't true, yet many children grow up thinking that whatever they want to achieve is there for the taking.
We are seeing the consequences of this in the audition tapes for X factor and so forth, where people who have as much chance of becoming successful entertainers as I have of becoming a glamour model are persuaded to show their excruciating ineptitude for the amusement of the mob (rather as christians were sacrificed to lions for the amusement of the Roman mob).
It might be OK to reassure children with fairy stories and white lies but when it gets to the stage when young people are making 'life decisions', realism and an appreciation of risks and rewards is required.
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