A little help please

[Smeebird]

Hello,

Could anybody please help me find an idiom for these sentences "when we intend to do something to get good result, but we can't gain it" "whereas we have no intention to do something, we gain good result"

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[probus]

It's not a modern idiom, but a very well known phrase that might be correct in some contexts: the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

 

[Smeebird]

It's not a modern idiom, but a very well known phrase that might be correct in some contexts: the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

Thanks.

Anyone else have anything?

 

[Raymott]

I don't think we have an idiom that means that.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

It's not a modern idiom, but a very well known phrase that might be correct in some contexts: the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

A good try, but I'm not sure that it quite gets at the meaning. Smee's example is a paradox or an irony, and it's not only about failure, it's about both failure and success. It's sort of about gaining something by letting go.

I can't think of an Americanism that captures it.

Sorry, Smee!

=O.

 

[Tdol]

If you give something your best shot, you try your best, and normally fail.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

This might just be an Americanism. I thought of it last night: The faster I go, the behinder I get.