By now most of you know that I have a wealth of ‘sayings’ at my fingertips.  Some are clichés, but I still like and use them because they ring true.  Some are just silly.  Most come from my heritage which includes lots of Irish, and a bunch of ‘country folk’.  Some I’ve found say more about my heritage than I knew.

When listening to a recording of Frank McCourt’s ‘Tis; a memoir’ I was astonished to hear a phrase I had only ever heard from my father.  It confirmed how deep the Irish roots really went.  “Your bladder is right behind your eyes” It basically means that you cry easily.  Wow!

There is another one that I am particularly fond of because it is multipurpose.  Sometimes it’s used to say that we have over exaggerated a problem and made it far worse, catastrophized it if you will.    It can also mean that we are dreaming way beyond the current circumstances.

Of course, I learned it when someone accused me of it.  And they were right.  I had “taken a button and sewed a suit on it”.  I’d taken one event and applied it to a far reaching future that might not even happen.

It’s a talent we all seem to use at one time or another.  And boy do we use it about money!  We can all cite chapter and verse, and provide tons of evidence, to when money let us down, wasn’t there for us, disappeared…whatever.  And it all starts with taking a button and sewing a suit on it.

This happens all the time with money.  Simple things that happen and somehow grow in to big issues.  The lady that has the shopping ‘addiction’ that comes from Mom showing affection by taking her shopping.

The guy that can’t save money, because he’s sure it will get taken away.  See when he was little it was ‘taken away’ when his parents took the money out of his piggy bank and put it in a bank account for him.  He just didn’t understand that the money was still his.  He couldn’t touch or feel it any more.

All buttons with suits attached.

And my all time favorite.  The lady who explained how, when she was a kid, they got one pair of shoes a year.  This single pair had to last all year.  What did the suit she sewed on that button look like?  It looked like her now having 75 pairs of shoes.

Something to consider.  When do you sew suits on buttons?  What is the result of that?  My guess is that it at the very least distracts you from your goals, and even more likely actually hinders your progress.

I’d love to hear about one of your button adventures, with money, or not.

Ka-ching

Shell