Profound bits of important knowledge often come wrapped in aphorisms. “If the stove is hot, don’t touch it” is an important bit of common sense we can all apply. This timeless remark tells us an eternal truth: “Avoid situations that are going to end up burning you. If people observed that little bit of horse sense, the world would be a very different place. We would all avoid a lot of unhappiness and suffering.
Think what would happen if people would not “touch the hot stove of drug abuse. They would say, “That is not for me.” We would not have a drug crisis because everyone would be too smart to do drugs. We would not have hundreds of thousands getting burnt by becoming hooked on drugs.
If people avoided hot stoves, no one would engage in premarital sex. After all, a girl can get pregnant and ruin her and her baby’s future. People would also avoid casual sex in its various forms. It burns many a family, destroying youthful romances, marriages and society.
If people avoided touching hot stoves, they would not steal, whether by using a knife, a gun or simply their brains. “Crime does not pay” is just a variation of the hot stove aphorism. Here is what one individual said who was arrested and convicted of securities fraud, tax evasion and perjury – using insider trading information illegally to enrich himself. “It is not worth it”, he said. “And it is not just because what happened to me. It is because of what happened to my family, the innocent victims.” If this man had heeded a 3,000-year-old Proverb, he might not have burnt himself and his family. King Solomon, the wise, warned about the hot stove of avarice: “He who is greedy for gain troubles his own house” (Prov. 15:27).
Common sense teaches us that the real reason to avoid cheating others is not because we might get caught, but that it is inherently wrong. If we do not love our neighbour as ourselves, we create a shark-in-infested society, in which some prey on others. If people, applied the common sense principle of do not touch a hot stove, they would listen to the advice of others. They would heed those who themselves had endured hard knocks in the world of experience – had their own fingers burnt.
If teenagers listened to the advice of their parents, they would not find themselves in many a scrape. Those who respect their elders rely on the finger burning experience of their predecessors – the common sense or collective wisdom that should permeate society. But how few are those who do this? The majority make common sense quite uncommon because they rarely follow the instruction of collective wisdom.
The next time you consider some course of action – before you reach out your hand and touch that stove – ask yourself: “Is this really something that is going to benefit me? Or am I and everyone else going to get burnt?”
