Liberty and Security: Axioms of a Questionable Nature

So much of what we read, think, and repeat is not exactly correct!

 For example have you encountered the phrase, "Those who give up liberty for security deserve neither"? Often incorrectly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, the phrase is nonsensical. With no national security, soon enough you'll have no liberty.

With complete security, you'll have no liberty as well. A trade-off is always needed. For the record, Benjamin Franklin actually said, “Those who would give up essential liberty, to pursue a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Now that makes sense!

A penny saved is a penny earned. Once again, Ben Franklin is in the mix. A penny saved is not a penny earned. A penny earned is a penny earned and even then it might not be a full penny depending on taxes, inflation, and other hidden costs and expenses. If you save your money in a long-term CD, you can’t have access to it for a while. If funds are tied up when you need to draw upon them, well, that is not a pretty penny.

Not Really...

What about the phrase, "Experience is the best teacher"? Perhaps, this is so, but not as a given. Generally, an excellent teacher is the best teacher. Experience might teach us the wrong lessons or send us down another blind alley. If we don't fully comprehend the meaning of our experiences, in the future we’re as likely to make bad decisions and have unfortunate experiences as a result.

Closely related is, practice makes perfect. Practice does not make perfect. If your practices are incomplete or off the mark, then you will continue to be imperfect and you might be reinforcing a bad habit. As they say in Tae Kwon Do, “Practice makes permanent.”

On my daughter’s softball team, a young girl named Whitney was regarded as the star pitcher. Yet during the pregame warm-ups, time after time, she could barely throw a strike. With luck, she averaged 20% strikes out of all her pitches thrown. Sure enough, when the game started, she was no better. Why would anybody expect the outcome to be different?

The best chance for you to excel is to have perfect practices. An array of imperfect practices leads nowhere.

Lemons and Life

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This sounds like good advice, but to actually make and sell lemonade, you'd also need to have clean water, a good lemon press, some type of sweetener, a paring knife, a pitcher, an implement for stirring, and cups. Such bromides leave out 90% of what else you’d need.   

Periodically, I encounter authors and speakers who write or say 'to live life more fully' by pretending that "you have six months to live." If you had six months to live you’d engage in behaviors different than now.

You might sell your house. You might go on world travel, or at least travel more than you’ve been doing. You might dissipate your assets. You might spend your money down to nothing, or give it all away. Then, when you undoubtedly live beyond six months, you're likely to be penniless!

Thank You For Sharing (!)

Think outside the box. What does the "box” even mean? The phrase has been so overused that it is now rendered meaningless. Would it be better simply to say “expand your thinking,” or “brainstorm,” or “reach beyond the norm”?

There is no 'I' in team. Michael Jordan once remarked that while there is no “I” in team, there certainly is a “me.” Acronyms and creative word use might have their place in a corporate pep rally, otherwise stay away from such phrases.

By now, you can probably think of other axioms and witticisms that, upon examination, have little meaning. Let's give ourselves a refreshing break for a few years, and not use any of the above.