Time is money. Actually, you know what? I don't think it is.
Hey everyone, Dana here! Let's talk idioms that drive me up the wall.
Eh, eh, you see what I did there?
Idioms that drive me up the wall, drive me up the wall is also an idiom, uh-huh…I know.
I'm corny.
But anyway, really, there are some common English sayings, at least commonly used where
I'm from in the U.S., that I just can't stand.
I really hate these sayings.
I hate the sayings and I hate what they mean and I hate how they are used in our society today.
Maybe at some point in time these sayings made sense, and served an important purpose,
but in my opinion, how they're used today is simply not good.
I don't like the ideas that these sayings represent or I don't like how I've often
experienced these sayings being used.
And let's start with the saying that I mentioned in the intro, time is money.
As with many sayings, this one just kind of gets tossed around so much - time is money - that
I've found it really easy to internalize it and without really even realizing it, just accept the
idiom as some kind of fact of the world or inevitable certainty, but that's not the case.
It's just a saying, not a fact.
But hearing it over and over and over again, time is money, time is money, time is money
kind of brainwashed me.
Like I found myself just kind of buying into this idea that time is money.
That we shouldn't waste time because we need to be using that time to earn precious money.
I hate that this idea has wormed its way into my brain.
First of all, don't even get me started on the phrase "wasted time," I don't
like that one either, but anyway; how ridiculous is the saying "time is money," getting
at that basically any time not spent toward earning money is wasted time.
Um, excuse me, no, what kind of crap is that?
There are countless, endless beautiful and wonderful and important things to do in life
that have nothing at all to do with making money.
So if I never, ever hear this saying again I will be very happy, but I know that's
probably not going to happen because as I said before, it's a pretty common saying
and one that I think people just often toss out without, I would say, really thinking
about the implications of what it actually means.
I know that I have certainly done that before.
I've used this saying so much without really thinking about it.
And that's exactly the problem.
People keep repeating over and over again, time is money so often that the world, I feel
like, actually starts to believe it.
But so I'm going to do my little tiny part in striking this saying from my vocabulary.
I'm going to try really hard not to say time is money.
Time is time and money is money, but no, time is not money.
And while we're on the subject of money, another saying that I really don't like
is "money can't buy happiness."
Now, okay, I do feel like this saying has good intentions, trying to remind people that
happiness doesn't come from money alone...although we do need a certain amount of money in this
world in order to live.
But okay, the saying is there to try to remind us that we need to look inward for our happiness
rather than just expecting money to simply poof, solve everything and make us happy.
But it really irritates me and I think is potentially dangerous that this saying is
so commonplace and so often tossed out in a world where the previous saying, that I
just finished pulling apart - time is money - is also so ubiquitous.
It's like, come on society, you can't have it both ways.
One moment you're standing there telling me time is money, don't waste your time
on anything else.
You gotta go earn that cold hard cash.
And then in the next breath I feel like society is looking down at me, shaking its head in
disappointment, like, silly Dana, everyone knows money can't buy happiness.
Then why did you just tell me time is money? It just feels to me like the world is
tugging me in two completely conflicting directions
with both of these sayings existing in the same world and both of them being used so often.
What do you want from me?
Another saying that drives me crazy is "it's now or never."
Nope. Wrong. Wrong. Just...wrong.
In my life more than anything else this saying and the idea behind this saying has been used
by myself as well as by others to try to pressure me into doing things that I simply have not
been ready to do at that point in time.
And while, yes sometimes it really is truly a now or never situation, a lot of the time,
in my experience, when this saying has been used by me on myself or by others on me as
a way to try to pressure me into doing something, it wasn't actually, truly a case of
now or never.
It was really usually more of a case of now or at some other point in time in the future,
which would probably end up being a little bit more inconvenient to myself or the other
person trying to pressure me into doing the thing.
And the last hated English saying for this video, because there are more, there are more
of them, and maybe I'll make another video about some of those other ones in the future,
but lastly for this video, we have "don't cry over spilled milk."
So this saying is supposed to mean that the person shouldn't worry about events that
have already happened and which they cannot do anything about, like, for example, if you
spill milk, no point sitting around crying about it because, well, it's already been
spilled...there's nothing you can do about it, might as well just move on with your life.
And while I do think that it's important to try to focus on the things that we can
do something about in life, and try not to dwell on the things that we can't do anything
about, I know that in my life both internally from myself and externally from others, this
saying has been used to try to discourage me from allowing myself even a single second
to be disappointed or frustrated or sad about something, just because that something is
something that I can't change, it's something I can't do anything about, so I'm not allowed
to feel disappointed about it.
Which I am learning is also not so healthy for me.
Okay, right, it might not be so healthy for me to dwell on it, but I've also learned
that it is important for me to allow myself to feel the feeling of disappointment of sadness
of frustration or whatever it is I'm feeling.
Even if that feeling comes from something that I can't change.
I still need to give myself some time to feel that feeling.
And then after that, make the decision to move on with my day.
So my question for you is: What is your take on these sayings, and what sayings in English
or any language do you dislike?
Please let me know in the comments below.
Thank you so much for watching.
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Until next time, auf Wiedersehen!
I'm like jumping an invisible jump rope. I don't think that's how jump ropes work.
When this saying has by...yeah.
Eee!
As with many sayings, feels...yeah.
Pretty clever I think. I know I'm corny. But I like it.
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