Last week I spent a day in Boston with my friend Susan's 15-year old daughter, Melissa, and Melissa's best friend, Victoria. Out of the blue, Melissa asked me to explain what the word cliché meant. Um, well, you know....cliché means something is cliché. Everybody knows what cliché means, right? Well, after awkwardly fumbling around to find the right words, I mumbled that it was something that was overused, a stereotype, you might say. My vague description seemed to satisfy the 15-year old. That was a close call, I thought.
Of course, me being me, I immediately looked up the word on dictionary.com when I got home. Turns out I was sort of right. According to the website, a cliché is "a trite, stereotyped expression; a sentence or phrase, usually expressing a popular or common thought or idea, that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse." Great. I knocked that one out of the park.
Oddly, the next night, as I was ringing in the New Year with my friend Colette, she mentioned clichés. She stated that you can't go wrong if you use clichés as a guide to life. To my martini infused brain, Colette's declaration seemed perfectly sound to me and I jokingly said that for the new year I was going to live a life of clichés.
The next morning, after a greasy breakfast, and the brain fog from my NYE revelry lifted, I thought about what Colette said. She might actually be onto something. Does time heal all wounds? Yeah, kinda. Does the early bird catch the worm? Usually. Do those who live by the sword, usually die by the sword? Typically. Is what's good for the goose, good for the gander? Always.
Turns out that some things are "overused" for a reason. And that stereotypes are usually based on some truth. So I'm sticking with my original plan to live a life of clichés for the next year! I'm letting bygones be bygones and living life like there is no tomorrow because time flies when you're having fun!
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