I’m a wiseacre seeking to become a wise man. I’m giving myself another twenty-two years and five months for this transformation. I wasn’t wise at twenty-one, or forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy-five, maybe there’s hope for me as a centenarian? If I last that long? And can remember anything? Yeah, I know, probably not. In the meantime, I’ll just write down these little pieces I find of “wisdom from unusual places.”

I call myself a writer now, and one of the things those who tell writers how to write say, is “avoid clichés,” in fact, I’ve read it so often that the advice itself is in danger of becoming a cliché. It got me thinking though. What is a cliché?

That accent on the end ‘é’ caused me to think the word might be French. It turns out that it is related to another French word, “stereotype.” Now, a stereotype is a piece of sloppy thinking, and oversimplification about a person, or thing, e.g., all women are nurturers, or all cars produce smog. As the son of a printer, I should have known that early cast printing plates were called “stereotypes.” As the plate moved back from printing a page it made a clicking sound, cliché to the French printers, an aural indicator of the thoughtless reproduction of the page, just like a cliché is the thoughtless reproduction of an idea.

A cliché is a word or phrase repeated so many times it gets tired and loses its meaning. Although. . .

If the clichéd phrase is repeated so often, mightn’t there be some of the original meaning there? Mightn’t there still be some wisdom left?

In praise of starting early

“The early bird catches the worm.” Even though my eldest daughter said “Yuck,” when she first heard it, the phrase communicates get an early start on the day, beat the slug-a-bed competition. Ben Franklin built on the idea in Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

I’m not a morning person. I’ve seen a lot more sunsets than sunrises in my life, but “start early” is not bad advice. “Wake up, wake up you sleepy head, Get up, get up, get out of bed, “ as Harry Woods wrote in his 1926 song “When the red, red, robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along.” “The early bird catches the worm” – get up and get started.

Of course, sometimes being first in line is not the best answer. As my friend Brad says, “the second mouse gets the cheese.”

Be prudent

“Look before you leap,” always conjures an image of two starry-eyed lovers at the top of “Lovers Leap” in a Gahan Wilson cartoon. She looks down at the rocks below and says, “Yeah, I think I’ll take the stairs.”

“Better safe than sorry.” Or was she just not “head over heels in love.”

Being prudent isn’t bad advice. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” says quit thinking you are supernatural.  Think about your actions, so you don’t move “from the frying pan to the fire.”

“A stitch in time saves nine,” extolls the virtue of regular maintenance. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” tells us not to get ahead of ourselves anticipating profit from our investments or business. “Don’t spend what you ain’t made yet.” “All that glitters is not gold.”

So “Keep your eye on the ball,” Keep your eyes open, and “Keep your eyes peeled,” (eeeeoou, yuck). Be prudent.

Be patient

“Rome wasn’t built in a day” says whatever you’re building takes time. Unfortunately, it is also said as an excuse for inaction or avoidable failure, somewhat like people say, “it’s a process, and the boss says, “close only counts in horseshoes.”

“You can’t learn to swim without getting wet,” “Practice makes perfect,” or the one I prefer “Practice makes better; nobody’s perfect.”

“Time heals all wounds, speaks to the importance of resilience. Whereas “What goes around comes around,”  and “Time wounds all heels.” speaks to a faith in karma.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,”  and Nietzsche’s “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” are good guidance, even if the people who say these things tend to annoy me.

I grew up with uber-competent women, two sisters and a math-whiz mother, so I often heard, “Patience is a virtue. Possess it if you can. It is seldom found in women, but never in a man.”

Be kind

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” “No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”

“A closed mouth gathers no feet.” “Turn the other cheek,” (Jesus). “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” “You attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.” “To err is human to forgive divine.” “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” (Gandhi).

We humans have had wisemen to show us the way. We can’t say we don’t know how to behave. It is a shame that “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls.” Their words have turned into clichés.

Act. Always do what you say you’re going to do

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” written for the master procrastinator- me.

“Do or do not. There is no try.” This Yoda quote from the Star Wars movie “The Empire Strikes Back” speaks to commitment. It’s a newer cliché, but half-heartedness never achieved much.

“If wishes were horses then beggars would ride.” “Take the bit between your teeth.” “Take the bull by the horns” “Put your money where your mouth is.” “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “Put a little elbow grease in it.”

“If you’re going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk.”

Are these clichés? Or did we just stop listening to the wisdom they contain.

“Couldn’t we all “turn over a new leaf.” “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  Really? Yeah, really.