A saying that Daniel and his family say is “como me ves te veras,” which means: how you see me is how you’ll be too. The significance of this proverb is that the person doing the looking is the only one perceiving. Therefore, how you look at someone reflects a part of yourself. Daniel’s parents or grandparents would say this to him when he they caught him negatively judging someone else. They would say it in order to express that when you judge others, you are judging yourself.
Another proverb that Daniel and his family use is: “perro que ladra no muerde,” which means the dog that barks doesn’t bite. Usually the animal who speaks up or yells the most is putting on a front. He is showing aggression but won’t usually take action.
Both of these proverbs speak a good amount of truth to them. These proverbs in Daniel’s family helped establish some of his morals growing up.
Tag Archives: proverb
“You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”
The informant learned the proverb from her mother.
“It means that when you meet people you never know what their real life is like at home when nobody’s watching. It stuck with me because as I’ve grown older, I realize how true it is for so many people. I mean you read the papers and see these horrible things happening to children. Sexual and physical abuse and verbal abuse. People hiding these things. And I think she had that in her family. She had an abusive father. It was her own very quiet way of telling me, [the proverb]. She was saying ‘be understanding about other people when they may not be acting perfectly because you don’t know about their lives.’ Have empathy. I think that’s what she was trying to say. Even if their not perfectly nice, maybe they are coming from a place that they need more understand than the average person.”
The informant said that she would tell this to her children when they had issues with others in school. Sometimes she would see signs of something awry in their lives that would make the child act out. The informant wanted her children to be compassionate like her mother had taught her to be.
Annotation: Denise Richards utilizes a variation of the proverb commenting on the difficulties in her life with Charlie Sheen in an interview with Fox 411:
McGevna, Alison. “EXCLUSIVE: Denise Richards: ‘No One Knows What Goes On Behind Closed Doors'” Fox News. FOX News Network, 10 Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2013. <http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/02/10/denise-richards-people-quick-judge-situation/>.
“You look like an Indian that just struck oil.”
“It means that… if somebody says it to you, it means that you have recently come into some type of money. And you have spent it all on clothing. You’re all fussed up. You have bought a lot of expensive clothing and you are wearing it. It’s like you’re wearing your money.”
The informant heard this from her father. He used to always say it when she and her sister would get dressed up to go out for something. He thought it was funny. The informant said, “He was making fun of you dressing up. He didn’t like to get dressed up so he would put ‘dressing up’ down.”
The informant said she would only ever say the proverb around her immediate family because she thinks that it is racist, but the informant remembers her father saying it as a pleasant memory. As a child, she did not understand the “racist implications,” and she thought it was funny because he was joking around and happy, and he didn’t do that all that often.
I have never heard this proverb before probably for the same reason that my informant does not like to repeat it. I have heard proverbs that spread a similar message that usually discourage people from showing their wealth to others.
“Always try to look at it from another person’s point of view.”
“It was something my dad told me, and I really liked it. It stuck with me. Usually it would be because my sister and I were fighting. He wanted me to have compassion for my sister who had kind of a tough childhood for a number of reasons, but I don’t know that it really helped me that much for her. It helped me many other times. We are all ego centric and we look at things from our point of view. Sometimes when you pause, you can realize where other people are coming from and it benefits you also in so many ways. You can be more compassionate because you understand them. Not manipulate, but you can change the situation so both people get more of what they want. Its just smarter. Its just plain smarter not to live only in your own mind. You really should do that. You can use it to your advantage in addition to helping someone else.”
The informant relies a lot on having compassion and understanding for others, but she also understands that by helping others sometimes you can help yourself. Hearing this as a child has helped her better understand how to deal with people in her present. This goes to show how some things really stick with children and the weight that proverbs can carry as wisdom from an “older generation.”
“If you don’t try, you’re lazy.”
The informant shared this proverb that he learned from his father in law. I laughed when he said it, but he asserted, “It’s actually quite a good one though. I learned that from him.”
The informant learned it in the context of their shared business. To him, it means that “if you just, when something comes up, if you don’t try to resolve it or if you just do nothing, then you are lazy. Also if you can do better, but you don’t try new things because it is too much work… You should always try things or else you are lazy.”
He uses the proverb when talking to his employees. He says that they never try new things; they just do. They think that this is how they have always done it so they just continue even if it isn’t working, but he tells them this so that they will try something new.
I think the proverb is very true especially to the more modern generations who rely more on technology to get things done. I think the proverb is really saying not to complain if you aren’t going to do something to change the situation.