What do you think this phrase means?

If you fail, how do you make your thinking positive again?

Everyone makes mistakes.

Mistakes are just a fact of life. We can learn from our mistakes. However, regretting our mistakes every day is not healthy. We need to learn from them and then move on.

Finish each day and forget it. You have done what you could. You made mistakes; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. Begin your new day calmly.

Many people use these words to not dwell in the past. When we dwell on something, we think about it constantly. It becomes a distraction and keeps us from going forward.

When we “cry over spilt milk,” we are upset or sad about something bad we have done that we cannot change. This is another way of saying, “What’s done is done. You cannot change the past. So stop thinking about it.” If you spill milk, you cannot put it back in the container.

We usually use the expression this way: “There's no use crying over spilled milk.” “Spilled” or “spilt” are both okay. Some say, this expression was first used in the mid-1600s in England. Back then, the expression was “no weeping for shed milk.”

Let’s say one of your close friends is having some kind of problem? What if this friend has not been able to move from the past? You can tell them to “Get over it!”

Now, this could sound rude. After all, it is a wake-up call, a warning to change for the better. And those can be hard for people to hear and accept. But if someone has been crying over spilt milk for months, or even years, a wake-up call is necessary.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

A=1, B=7, C=4, D=2, E=8, F=3, G=6, H=5

Some example sentences using the new words or phrases from the meaning of how they are used in the reading to help you understand better.

1. For students in Korea, hard study is a fact of life.

2. I regret the time that I lied to my mom.

3. After he broke up with his girlfriend it was hard to move on.

4. We lost, but we can’t dwell on the loss. We must move on.

5. Listen please. Don’t be distracted by what you friend is doing.

6. She was upset that her husband came home smelling like alcohol.

7. Losing is hard, but we must get over it if we want to be happy again.

8. Sometimes, failing is a good wake up call. If we always succeed then we can become lazy.

    

    

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

1. How can we be positive and accept some things as a fact of life? Give an example.

2. Are there some things you regret from you past? How can/did you get over them?

3. When/If you broke up with someone did you find it hard to get over it?

4. If you have a friend who keeps dwelling on the past, what do you say to him/her?

5. If you are upset over something that you regret, how do you distract your mind to think of other things?

6. When would you use the phrase ‘wake-up call.’ Think of an example of using this phrase.