Why do many (most?) people tend to interpret sayings the most passive way possible? Like "April showers bring May flowers" most people interpret as "if something unpleasant happens to you just wait and it changes to the better on its own". While the literal sense is the opposite of that: "for something good to even get a chance to happen something not very pleasant should be done first". It's obvious which is correct: if you want expensive entertainment you must first work hard, you can't just stay poor, do nothing, and wait for an improvement. Or "one today is worth two tomorrows" they read as "just take what you get now and don't aim for the better letter" - passive. While it literally reads more like "this current day is when you should act as the other day could be too late or the circumstances may change and the actions you think are the best as of today may become much less efficient tomorrow". Again, easy to check. If you just eat your cucumber today you get a cucumber, while if you pickle it you will get much more valuable product later. Passive reading isn't particularly wise. While active reading would be "you should pickle your cucumber today as two days later it may rot or wither and trying to pickle it later would earn inferior result; or you may be distracted with new events and problems and lose the opportunity to do what you intend and still can do right now". Again, it's clear that reading the saying as a call to an action has much more sense. And it's basically with all sayings. They can be read in active and passive sense but people often read them in the most passive sense they can and seemingly don't even see the active sense of the saying.