7 Famous Sayings We’ve All Heard That Aren’t True

Like most of Generation X, I love those tried and true, folksy, common-sense sayings. Most of the time, they’re spot on – or at least a lot more right than wrong. However, there are exceptions, and quite frankly, more people should be aware of them, or you’ll think that just because “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” or “can’t get blood from a stone,” that these sayings must be true, too.

1) “Pictures don’t lie:” Actually, pictures lie all the time. When I see her again, she may kill me for this, but this is a public picture of an ex-girlfriend of mine I took at the Boston Observatory a few years back:

Your first thought after seeing that is probably, “OMG! She looks so sad! What did you do to her? YOU MONSTER!”

In actuality, I made a terrible joke, she made a weird face in response to it, and I somehow happened to snap a picture in the middle of her facial expression changing. That’s how we ended up with her looking like I told her all the puppies in the world just died futilely trying to save all the kittens.

And by the way, this is a REAL PICTURE. No filters, no editing, no attempt to deliberately mislead people. Once you bring those into the equation, it’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t:

2) “Good things come to those who wait:” Depending on what you’re doing, patience really can be a virtue, but waiting? In and of itself, it’s often a bad idea. Although there’s no proof he actually said it, Abe Lincoln supposedly had a great response to this quote:

You know what waiting usually means? Inertia, missed opportunities, and the window closing on your dreams. If you want it, get about it.

3) “Love conquers all:” If this were true, the phrase, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you,” would have never been said before. We also wouldn’t have 40-50% of marriages ending in divorce, depending on whose statistics you believe. Pretty much all of those people started out in love, and the world broke them down. Maybe it happened slowly, year after year, as they drifted apart, or maybe it happened fast.

A woman once told me about why she got divorced. She dated a man for a year, and he never stayed overnight. She thought it was because he was being respectful. It was actually because he was a hopeless drunk who got hammered every night. He probably thought he could free himself from his addiction before they got married. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, and after they got married, he wasn’t able to hide it anymore. As strong as love is, it wasn’t able to conquer alcoholism. They were divorced within a couple of months.

When love is working its magic, there is nothing sweeter, but when it fails – and it does frequently, it’s the sort of miserable process Neil Gaiman described so brilliantly:

4) “No pain, no gain:” Sure, it’s true that you’re almost always going to have to go through suffering of some sort to get much better at things. Your humble author was repping out 315 pounds on a hex bar deadlift earlier this week. It required pain, effort, and today my legs are still very sore. That pain was required to get the muscular gain that comes with it.

However, people often use this as an excuse to push through injuries. I don’t even know how many freaky strong people and stud athletes have told me about lifelong damage of some sort that they’re still living with decades later because they got hurt, ignored the pain, and kept on pushing until something gave. Don’t be that guy.

If you’re not a high-level athlete who has to push through the injury pain for your job, don’t do it. You don’t need to be limping around 30 years from now because you pushed through an injury to try for a new squat max:

5) “The early bird gets the worm:” If people were to interpret this to mean, “The first person to an opportunity usually gets it,” it would basically be correct. Being the first person to ask a business owner for a job, create a new product, or ask a particular girl to the dance is a big advantage.

However, most people look at this as another way of saying, “The earlier you get up, the more productive you are,” and that doesn’t really seem to be true. Sure, there are productive people who get up early like famous Navy SEAL Jocko Willink:

On the other hand, there are productive people with all sorts of sleeping schedules. Personally? I have gotten up extremely early for jobs before, but the most productive times of my life were when I was working until the wee hours. That’s not unusual. There’s no magic to getting up super early. In fact, it doesn’t work particularly well for most people, which they will happily tell you if they have to get up much earlier than normal for some reason.

6) “Just follow your dreams:” This reminds me of something billionaire Palmer Luckey said a few years ago:

Are you dreaming of being the next Keith Olbermann? The Leader of the Crips Street Gang in your neighborhood? Of hosting the world’s most famous radio show about conspiracies? Well, maybe you should dream about something else.

As someone who pursued (and succeeded at) political blogging as a career when there was one person on earth making a living at it (Andrew Sullivan), I am not going to tell you that you should give up on your dreams because they’re longshots, but there needs to be some sort of acknowledgement of the odds and reality.

Oh, you’re 5’3, and you want to be in the NBA like Muggsy Bogues? Okay, how do your physical skills compare to his? Are you at least an elite player at the level you’re playing at? You want to be a rock star? How good are your vocals or ability on the guitar? What kind of reactions are you getting at your performances? Are there people ready to pay money to hear you play?

Your dreams are important, but there’s also a lot to be said for being smart about your dreams, so you don’t spend decades chasing a fantasy.

7) “If you love something, let it go, if it’s meant to be it will come back to you:” This is undoubtedly the dumbest one on the entire list because this is pretty much the exact opposite of how life works most of the time.

Maybe you could come up with some context where this makes sense, like let’s say you’re one of those guys who is crushing on a woman who only sees you as a friend. Sure, it could make sense to tell her how you feel, ask her out, and walk away if she’s not interested. Also, if let’s say you’re a Beast man who has been keeping a beautiful woman captive in your castle and you think she’s in love with you, but you’re not sure, it also might work:

However, back in the real world, it’s usually a disaster. Do you know what happens when you stop talking to your friend, become estranged from your family, or go on a “break” from your relationship? Typically, the relationship ends because most people believe that if you really cared, you would have fought for them, not let them go.

Sure, there are exceptions, but the rule is going to be that they’re going to find someone else, make a new friend, or write you off, maybe permanently. What else would you expect if you let them go?

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