Why you shouldn't trust platitudes

Why is there so much popular but bad life advice?

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In working on this project I’ve noticed how platitudes are perhaps the most popular rules to live by in everyday life. Sayings like “it is what it is” or “age is just a number” are so common that we rarely unpack what is actually going on when they are spoken.

Often platitudes are used thoughtlessly or in the wrong contexts. To tell someone who is crying “don’t be sad because it’s over, be glad that it happened” suggests an on/off switch for our emotions that just doesn’t exist. Or to offer, “Life doesn’t give you things you can’t handle” implies a magical and narcissistic database somewhere that calculates our minute to minute limitations and, with unspecified omnipotence, constructs a universe consistently bound within them. There can be a dismissiveness in platitudes, a cold lack of empathy or recognition to what the human experience is actually like.

Yet these sayings are so familiar that they can provide a kind of nostalgia. Even if sad or distressed, we might nod in approval when we hear them, or some small, part of our rational consciousness does, forgetting to consider how strange and misguided some of these ideas are. Part of their popularity is kind of like popular song lyrics: many of them are fun to say and hear (even if we’re not thinking about how idiotic they are), so there is a social pleasure in offering a platitude and seeing the nod of recognition in return.

The problem with platitudes is they are all, at best, half-truths. They apply to some situations in life, but not to all. I can prove this because most famous platitudes have an equally famous but competing platitudes that offer the opposite advice! I call these countertudes. They can’t both be right, at least not at the same time.

Take for example, god helps those who help themselves (which actually comes from the Greeks, so it was originally ‘gods help those…’). Ok, fine. This suggests that taking initiative is good. I can see that. But then we also have good things come to those who wait. Which is it? Taking initiative is good? Or waiting? Both are good, so how is this advice useful? It’s really not.

Obviously I know that you know that I know, that context is everything. Any rule, or platitude, is only as good as the context in which it is applied. But this renders the value of these sayings as far less than it seems on the surface. A rule is only as good as your ability to know when to apply it and when to ignore it. Which the rule itself probably doesn’t tell you.

Awhile ago I published a list of the most annoying platitudes. Over 500 people commented to add more. It’s clear I’m not alone and many of us don’t like how these mostly pretentious sayings are used in daily situations in utterly stupid ways.

If I’m venting here, it’s because when people say these things, there’s often an “I told you so” kind of mild superiority just below the surface. The hint that by saying one of these cliches I have enriched your life in a profound way you would have never realized on your own. Despite how little help these sayings usually give us in sorting the difficult life situations we are in. And there is no way to express this without seeming ungrateful, is there?

For example:

• If at first you don’t succeed, try try again, Quitting is actually a wise things to do sometimes. American productivity culture dismisses it, but knowing when to quit, let go and move on is a great life lesson to learn.

• Good things come to those who wait: what about procrastinators? Or people who fear risks and never stop waiting for perfect moments that never come?

• Go with the flow. If you look at nature, like a winter stream, often only dead things do this. Being a couch potato and doomscrolling through our free time is very much in the flow of the environments we’re often in.

• Time heals all wounds. What about brain damage? Or losing a body part? Maybe in not healing there is memory and grief which can be fuel for growth and learning. Healing is not the same as forgetting.

• There’s no I in Team: what about healthy teams that appreciate constructive individuality? Have you watched Steph Curry or Wayne Gretzky play?

• The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Yet practice is doing the same exact thing over and over again to slowly improve.

• Forgive and forget. Forgive sounds good, but forget betrays the adage, “fool me once, shame on me, fool my twice shame on you.”

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Do you have a favorite platitude? Or one that drives you mad? Tell me about it.