Passed down from generation to generation. This is a necessary condition for the correct and harmonious development of society. All peoples of the world have various sayings of wise people, proverbs and sayings. And each nation honors its traditions and educates the younger generation, based on the experience of their ancestors.
The role of proverbs in society
Proverbs, as well as sayings, have been compiled for more than one century. They contain all the wisdom and knowledge of people, so they never lose their relevance. Proverbs carry either a hidden subtext, or contain a direct guide to action. For example, the proverb “As it comes around, it will respond” makes you think about its meaning, and in such a saying as “Do not have a hundred rubles, but have a hundred friends”, the essence is immediately clear. The history and age of various proverbs are different. There are sayings that are more than a hundred years old, and there are younger sayings. All of them are of high value and are instructive in nature.
The meaning of the proverb "As it comes around, it will respond"
The number of proverbs and sayings is uncountable. For almost all occasions, there are more than a dozen wise sayings, but not all of them are constantly heard. This proverb is very famous and widespread, almost everyone has heard of it. What is the meaning of the proverb “As it comes around, it will respond”? Its essence lies in the fact that each person receives what he deserves. How you treat other people is how you will be treated. Good deeds will be rewarded with good, and anger will most likely be answered in the same coin.
There is no need to sow evil, since it usually returns to the offender, just as good returns a hundredfold.
Origin of the proverb
This saying is based on the use of such a phenomenon as echo. Since an echo is a repetition of the sound that you utter, figuratively speaking, what you send into space will return to you. This physical law is beyond doubt. It is impossible to shout "a" and hear "b" in response. Therefore, the inherent meaning of the proverb “As it comes around, it will respond” has a solid basis. You can’t argue with her, although, of course, there are exceptions in life when evil people, despite all the good that you do to them, still sow evil. Or, on the contrary, true Christians never respond with evil to dashing deeds, but forgive unkind people.
The word "comes around" in this proverb is of purely Russian origin. This characteristic sound “au” was shouted over by berry pickers or mushroom pickers in the forest in order not to get lost.
Now this interjection is rarely used, as it is already obsolete.
Proverbs similar in meaning
In Russian, there are many more proverbs similar in meaning. For example: “What you sow, you will reap”, “What is the greeting, such is the answer”, “Do good and wait for good” and many others. The meaning of the proverb “As it comes around, it will respond” and all those similar to it are one and the same, just said in different words. They teach to treat other people with kindness and understanding in order to see good deeds in return.
However, not only in Russian there are proverbs on this topic. Other peoples also have a lot of statements that have the same content as the essence of the proverb "As it comes around, it will respond." For example, the English version of the proverb: "What is the call - such is the echo." Expressions similar in meaning are found in German, French, Polish and other languages of the world.
However, one should not assume that this proverb calls for responding with evil to bad deeds. Folk wisdom teaches only to do good, and to punish offenders is not our prerogative. As a rule, life itself sooner or later punishes the villains. We must accumulate only positive energy and believe that good will always triumph over evil.
Many times in my life I heard from parents who come for a consultation complaints about their sometimes already quite adult children:
So indifferent! So insensitive! How much I am for him ... And he ...
And it turned out, if you believe these parents, a very strange picture - they, the parents, gave their children love and attention all their lives, and now these children do not want to return to them what they gave them! They do not want to do what is required of them, they do not want to give their attention, their love.
Parents in this situation looked like just heavenly angels, and their children - ruthless selfish monsters.
But, listening to such parents, I always knew that there was a discrepancy. Inconsistency. Because it doesn't happen! It doesn't happen like that.
If the parent was really loving and kind towards the child, he can only receive love and kindness in return. But if his child, having become an adult, does not want to give love and kindness, but shows indifference, or even cruelty, then, perhaps, this is what he received from his parents in his childhood life?
“As it comes around, it will respond” is a universal law, and it is strictly followed, regardless of our desire, mood or circumstances.
And if our children have grown up ungiving, ungenerous, unkind - we should not look for reasons anywhere, except in our attitude towards them. Children are our mirrors. They reflect to us our attitude towards them. And the common phrase that you need to treat people the way you want them to treat themselves is true. And more than true in our relationship with our children.
And if our children are now behaving insensitively towards us, it means that they did not receive warmth and love from us. If they got it, they would give it back to us.
Everything returns.
We reap what we have sown.
Our insensitivity will return as their insensitivity to us. Our indifference is their indifference.
Our rigidity, even cruelty, is their cruelty.
I remember one dad, tough, categorical, who punished his son with a belt, a dad who, according to him, was severely flogged by his father himself in childhood. Bill, saying: “Then you will be grateful to me!”
Well, how, - I asked - do you feel gratitude to your father?
He smiled somehow wryly, and said harshly, dryly:
And what - everything is fine! Well, beat ... - It was noticeable that it was unpleasant for him to talk about it.
What is your relationship with your father now? I asked.
In normal, - the man answered briefly.
Do you see each other often?
Why see him? He lives his life, I live mine...
But do you have an open, intimate relationship? Do you call each other? Do you share something with each other?
Are you interested in his life?
The man was silent.
Do you think about him? care? Do you make him happy?
The man answered in confusion, after a pause:
Thank you very much,” he said ironically, and I was glad that he understood this. What I felt was this simple rule - as it comes around, it will respond.
Children easily and generously give attention and understanding, help and support to those who were kind and generous, understanding and loving with them. They give it themselves, generously, you don't even have to ask for it.
Agree - how you want to have such children! But for this you need to be such a parent!
But how often we are completely different parents!
In the organization where I worked, I spoke with two women - young and mature. And only after working with them for several months, I was surprised to learn that they are mother and daughter.
Nothing betrayed their family relationship. An adult woman has always been cold towards a young woman, I felt her dislike, some kind of detachment. It turned out that the daughter married a guy whom her mother did not want to see as her son-in-law. And because she disobeyed, the mother said: “Well, live with him. If you are so independent, then live alone, without my help. Let's see how you do! You will come running again when you realize that your mother was right!”
And, having rejected her child (a nineteen-year-old girl) for "disobedience", the mother kept to her "principles" - not to show interest in the child in any way. Don't show family feelings. The daughter lived her own life. She gave birth to a child whose grandmother did not help to raise - "out of principle."
She went through many difficulties, because it is really difficult for a young girl to be a young mother, when you can’t even go to the store without a child - there is no one to leave him to, because the grandmother “out of principle” does not want to sit with her grandson! Grandmother could come to visit, leave a toy, but to her daughter’s timid request to sit with the child while she did some business, she answered:
You didn't ask me when you got married and when you decided to have a baby. Here's how to deal with it!
A few years later, I met a “principled” grandmother.
Like a daughter? I asked.
Daughter? - she asked again and answered coldly: - The daughter was selfish and remained selfish. She went to live abroad, only I saw her. And I haven’t seen my grandson for two years already ... I only know from her friend that she got a very good job there ... They have their own house, her husband made a good career for her. She does not work, she sits at home ... She is provided with everything, like cheese in butter rolls ... But in order to invite her mother to visit or give some gift ... - and there was so much resentment in her words.
And I just shook my head sympathetically, because I really sympathized with her - she herself, with her “principled” attitude, established a distance between herself and her daughter, and this turned against her. And as it often happens, we ourselves create distances between ourselves and our children, and then we are surprised that we are so alone!
Our children return to us our attitude towards them.
I once heard how a mother, who went out into the yard, called her son: “Sasha, will I be waiting for you for a long time ?!”
The boy approached his mother and said with displeasure: “Well, why are you shouting, mother?”
Why are you calling your mother mother? - an old woman sitting on a bench intervened in the conversation.
And how should I call her - mommy, or what? - said the child, and so much adult sarcasm was heard in this phrase, so much some kind of cold cynicism. And I involuntarily thought, really, how to call her - mommy or something, if she calls him Sasha?
And I remembered my grandson, who sometimes could come up to his mother, hug her and say tenderly: “Mommy, my dear mother ...”. He pronounced it all together, together, as one name for mom - “mommymilayamamamoya”. And he was for her - Nikitosha. And I thought: while he is “Nikitosha” for his mother, his mother is “my dear mother my mother” for him. But if you yell at him, if you humiliate him or reject him, will he want to call his mother “my dear mother”?
But how often our critical attitude towards the child, our conversations, intonations, postures, facial expressions are not kind and not cute.
How often do parents fight with their children. Fight them. They put pressure on them.
And thus cause a response to them - war.
A Russian-speaking person uses proverbs quite often, sometimes without even thinking about it. They are an integral part of our culture, assimilated by us imperceptibly to ourselves. A kind of "habit" is formed to use a specific phrase in a certain situation. Sometimes, using this or that expression out of habit, a person does not even think about its exact meaning, because he simply knows its general meaning and imagines in what situations it should be used. Something similar happens with the proverb "as it comes around, so it will respond."
The meaning of the proverb
First you need to understand the meaning of some words in this proverb. For native speakers of the Russian language, it is quite obvious that the word "come around" is somehow connected with the word "ay", which is often shouted when lost in the forest. And for every loud cry, as you know, an echo responds, exactly repeating the words of the screamer. It is this image that underlies the proverb, only the role of "cry" is played by actions and attitudes towards people. After all, most often people treat others the same way they behave towards them. This is precisely the main lesson of the proverb: everything returns to us, good is answered with good, evil with evil.
Usage example
This proverb can rightly be classified as one of the most popular set expressions in the Russian language. It is used in colloquial everyday speech. In fiction, it helps to give the speech of the characters a special expressiveness. And even in journalistic literature, it finds its place.
- Why would I submit to her? Galya shouted. - I do not want! As it comes around, it will respond! (M. Vovchok, "Mother-in-law").
- Maybe it seems to you that you get from others beyond your merit, but everything is fine: as it comes around, it will respond ("Knowledge is Power", 1975, No. 6).
The same idea can be expressed in different ways. So it is with proverbs - among them there are "synonyms", proverbs that arose at different times and in different places, but expressing the same idea, teaching people the same lesson. Only among Russian proverbs and sayings can you pick up a number of synonymous expressions:
- do good and expect good;
- you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind;
- do good, you yourself will be without trouble;
- live for people, people will live for you;
- What is hello, so is the answer;
- the wolf dragged - they dragged the wolf.
However, the same idea can be found in the proverbs of different peoples of the world. For example, the Abkhazian expression "as you clap your hands, so I dance" is interesting. There is a Gagauz proverb "as you lay down, so you sleep", at the same time reminiscent of the Russian "what you sow, so you reap."
Conclusion
Summing up, it should be noted that proverbs, despite their antiquity, are quite important for a person living in the modern world. With their help, the knowledge accumulated by generations is transmitted, the moral lessons necessary for the younger generations are presented, and the very connection between times is provided. Therefore, one should not brush aside the phrases that have become so familiar, thereby refusing the experience of the past, because otherwise the next generations will brush aside the experience of our time, because as it comes around, it will respond.