14. advice that stinks
tighten your wigs, friends. i'm about to go off. savage steven's about to flay some expressions alive.
•"practice makes perfect!"
no, it doesn't. it really fricking doesn't. as i said in "dancing", "that's a fricking lie. you can practice for some indeterminate number of fortnights and still only come out subpar". that sums up my thoughts pretty thoroughly, actually. thanks, me from the past!
you can put your heart and soul into improving your skills or whatever, but there will always be someone who is better than you. of course, you shouldn't compare yourself to others when judging how good you are at something (that's good advice!!). plus perfection is a myth anyway. there is nothing in this world that is completely flawless.
that being said, you should still make an effort to practice. just don't expect to see the results you want to see 100% of the time. you'll just end up disappointed and frustrated. take it from someone who's been in choir for upward of 5 years and still can't do vibrato to save his life...
•"when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"
what is this, the 1930s? do people even know how to make lemonade anymore? unless you're a professional lemonade-maker, why would you need to know?
(yes, i know it's just an expression. shut your faces.)
i tried making lemonade once when i was a kid. squeezed a lemon slice into my water, dumped a couple sugar packets into it, stirred it up. guess what it didn't taste like at all? lemonade. easier said than done, yeah?
so let's extend the analogy a bit, then (carefully, so as to avoid another sandwich situation). even if life gives you lemons, will it give you a lemon squeezer? or sugar and other sweeteners? or a pitcher and some glasses with which to store the lemonade? usually, the answer ends up being no. if you ask me, when life gives you lemons, chuck 'em out or suck it up.
•"dance like nobody's watching!"
no. just no. this ain't high school musical, sis. it's not an episode of glee. it's not like the big choreo scene in mamma mia 2 (which i haven't seen yet, but i am 110% certain that it contains one).
as luck would have it, i wrote about dancing in "dancing" already (duh!!). dancing requires coordination, depletes my self-esteem, causes undue stress, etc.
side note: i guess my extended free trial of sirius xm ended because now i can't access the swing station anymore. how sad. what does that have to do with this expression? nothing, really.
anyway, i have a crippling fear of public judgment, which is why i don't really dance or sing in public. it's one thing to be performing on a stage. but doing the same out in the open unprompted is a whole 'nother can of worms. i talked a little bit about this in the first "catchphrasing", but i involuntarily obsess over how other people see me. it's a weird worry to have. i know there are other people who feel the same way. so i'll stick to learning the orange justice dance and teen beach choreo in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.
•"shoot for the moon. even if you miss, you'll land among the stars!"
okay this one ticks me off the most. good LORD. it's one thing to use figurative language, but using it in such a cheesy and moronic manner is just plain aggravating. as an astrology major, it really rattles my raisins to think that people use this quotation unironically. er, no offense, norman vincent peale. but your sentiment has been appropriated by locals. i'm so so sorry.
this one's problematic for numerous reasons. what's so great about landing among the stars? if you were aiming for the moon, why settle for less? why not just try again? better yet, why did you make your goal so unachievable in the first place?
or we could look at the scientific problems. my astrological knowledge tells me that mercury's in retrograde and the alignment of the perseids favors sagittarius with the coming of the spring season. so therefore i must conclude that the moon has no atmosphere, getting even moderately close to a star would result in a painful death, and the moon is a heckuva lot closer than the closest star!! aka ra, the sun god!! boy, isn't astrology an important field??
this is another piece of advice that invariably leads to disappointment and frustration. it's inaccurate, misleading, and fake-inspirational. you're better off shooting hoops than shooting for the moon. at least then your difficulty breathing will be caused by your tired body rather than the lack of a lunar atmosphere.
•"what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!"
once when i was at school, i opened a door and accidentally smacked a kid right in the face. i must have been swinging it pretty violently, because he actually got a nosebleed from the impact. as i walked past him i jerked a thumb back at the classroom behind me, said "there's a tissue box in there. what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!", and cheerfully walked off to my next class.
i jest, i jest. this never happened. i'd be such a dipstick if it actually were true. it does put things into perspective though, don't it?
i do have my own spin on this phrase, actually. it's "what doesn't kill you will probably still leave you scarred for life from the physical or emotional trauma". now that's good advice!! i just put that on a bumper sticker or something. has someone already done that??
as you may have guessed, i am not a big fan of the kelly clarkson song "stronger". i do like her music but that song just annoys me. it makes it seem as though recovering from pain, heartbreak, | || loss || |_ or whatever is as easy as saying "this pain has taught me a lesson, i'm a tougher person now!" cliche and unrealistic much? moving on ain't that easy. not to crap on people who find inspiration and personal connections within the lyrics. if that's you, right on! i still can't bring myself to like it though...
anyway, the point i'm trying to get at is that applying this saying to anything bigger than a papercut (jokingly) or post-workout soreness (fairly accurately) is pretty silly. using it carelessly is pretty insensitive to the pain that others have been through or are still going through.
•"everything happens for a reason!" ✝
this one isn't really advice. it's more like something overly optimistic people say to you when something bad happens. or other people prefer the non-secular variation "when God closes a door, he opens a window".
oh dear. i've already knocked norman vincent peale and kelly clarkson (and possibly her fans). now it's gonna seem like i'm going after God Himself. gotta tread lightly here. i was always scared of being struck down by heavenly lightning as a child. okay it still scares me. ':)
does everything happen for a reason? probably. do i want to hear "everything happens for a reason" when something crappy happens? no. does saying "everything happens for a reason" make you sound like a cheapo hallmark card? heck fricking yes.
now let's look at the religious version. carefully. my mom is very fond of this saying. too fond, if you ask me. she uses it too often. and i enjoy hearing it about as much as i like hearing the other nonreligious version. that is to say, not!! at!! all!!
i don't blame God for closed doors or open windows. it's probably not even His fault anyway. i blame the quirky nature of life itself. and the fantasized personification of fate that i'm pretty sure has been out to get me since 7th grade.
so now that we've cleared up, it gets me hecka steamed when metaphorical doors are closed. who cares that there's a window open?? who enters buildings through windows anyway?? robbers and action movie protagonists, that's who!!
this saying makes it seem like God is taking away a big opportunity from you to give you a smaller/tougher opportunity. not to say that following God is easy-breezy all the time, but i feel like God would want to give you a hand rather than slamming the door in your face, yeah? ah well. i guess the Lord works in mysterious ways. that's another saying that's not a particular favorite of mine. er, no offense, God. ':)
but yeah. i've had big opportunities taken away from me and i had to settle for smaller ones that i was less excited about. not exactly enthusiasm city. sometimes it's really difficult to convince yourself that the path you're on is gonna lead to something worthwhile. everything may happen for a reason, but what's the reason? that's for God to know and us to find out...
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9/17/18 addendum - http://www.chucklorre.com/index-bbt.php?p=337
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