I love idiomatic expressions, especially ones that have lasted for hundreds of years. This phrase, translated to English, says: Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. This phrase became very popular in Germany in the 1500s. Famous names such as Martin Luther and Goethe referenced this phrase in their writings. The phrase seems to advise that in our attempts to get rid of something that is unwanted, we should not get rid of something valuable.
Even though this was a concept over 500 years ago, we still have not learned our lesson. As a human family, we find ourselves getting far more frustrated with what is going wrong then feeling happy about what is going right. As a consequence, when our frustration level peaks we overreact and throw everything out, including what is good. We do this all the time, and in surprising ways.
The first and the most impactful is in relationships. Have you noticed when you start getting annoyed with someone that everything starts becoming annoying? This is because you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When you decide something is not right, or not working for you, you instantly target the entirety of the thing bugging you with no consideration for anything else. Often the good might far outweigh the bad, but you are so focused on the one annoying thing that you are prepared to throw out a really valuable relationship. This is generally very bad for you. Relationships take a ton of time and energy to build, throwing them all out without careful consideration is damaging to you personally. You think you are removing an annoyance, but in reality you are throwing out the baby.
The second is with things. Something we own and use, like a car or a house, will diminish in value over time. However, this thing also provides you with a lot of benefit. A fully paid off house or car, provides a massive amount of value. There maybe a few things wrong and potentially even falling apart. However, we do the same thing here. We get one little annoyance or inconvenience, and then we are prone to removing the entire thing from our lives without considering all the value that we are currently getting. This is why we immediately regret decisions or have second thoughts. We never consider the gaps left by removing something, we only consider the relief from whatever is currently ailing us.
The third is more esoteric, but more real in impact. That is ideas, concept, and even beliefs. We choose to have faith in a concept, apply time and energy toward it, and we do not get the immediate results we want. So what do we do? We throw the whole idea out, and try something new. What we end up doing is throwing the baby, the infant idea out the window, without every really giving it due course.
So this phrase, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water, is relevant today in many ways. We are too impatient with our relationships, with our things and with our ideas. We need to give people and things time to realize their full value before we get hasty and throw everything out.
