The Wisdom Of Proverbs

We hear them all the time:
"Money does not grow on trees" "One good turn deserves another" "There's no place like home"

And I'm not going to lie, there are some that just confuse me!
"You cant have your cake and eat it too" Well, if you have the cake sitting in front of you, can't you eat it? Why would you have nice big cake in front of you and not dig in?

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" Does that mean it better to have a least one bird than no birds? I just don't get it.....

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" WHAT?!?!


On to the real reason for this post....

This week I have heard some really good explanations of some famous proverbs and it has got me thinking.

The first one was in church on Sunday. The speaker said something like "We always hear the grass is always greener on the other side right?"

He then went on to say that the grass is never greener on the other side, it's just a different kind of grass with it's own weeds and it's own challenges in growing. It may look better from where we stand, but we can't see all the things going on underneath the grass that may be making it hard for the grass to grow.

I had never really thought about it that way before!! I admit that I have a tendency to compare grass a lot and I never take into consideration that maybe the owner of that grass has gone out in the middle of the night with a can of green spray paint to hide the brown spots. I need to be much better about reminding myself of all the reasons why my grass is great instead of spending some much time focusing on the brown spots and weeds!!

The other proverb I heard was last night while I was at my parents house. Their home teachers came over and gave a really awesome message about "Don't cry over spilled milk".

He read a story about a kid who went to his first day of geometry class and there was a glass on milk sitting on the counter. Once everyone was seated the teacher made a sweeping motion with is hand and knocked the glass into a sink, shattering the glass and spilling the milk. The teacher went on the tell the class that the milk was gone, it had run down the drain and there was no way to get it back, so why worry about it. Yes, if the teacher had been a little more careful the milk may not have spilled, but at this point, the milk was gone and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

The kid went on to say that he doesn't remember much of the geometry he learned that year, but he always remembered that demonstration.

This is something else I am terrible at. When something doesn't work out I let myself feel guilty for a long time. Many times there is nothing I can do about the situation, no way to fix it, and I just beat myself up over it. But why? It's done, it's over with.
I need to be better about letting go of things I cant change and moving on from them.

 I think I need to post these somewhere in my room so that I am think about it and making a conscious effort to change the way I think! Why? Because "if at first you don't succeed, try try again!"