“fix the devil” makes it sound like: If you are in an abusive relationship, you should just stick with it and continue to suffer and eventually you’ll convince the abuser to stop abusing.
Which is terrible advice, because that’s never going to happen.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going”
not all abusers can change which is true but also not all abusers stay the same which is also true
But that’s so unlikely that NOBODY should ever expect it to happen.
Sometimes guns misfire, but nobody should EVER stand in front of one and expect that to happen.
I would quote Paradise Lost by Milton to express this sentiment: “The mind is its own place, and in it self / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”
or how about this: “if you walk through hell long enough you can turn it into heaven”
This is my first time hearing the phrase in sterquiliniis invenitur. I couldn’t find much about it besides it being attributed to Jung, its translation (it will be found in filth) and a Jordan Peterson talk. I didn’t care to watch the latter because although he does seem to engage in real academia sometimes I don’t find him reliable (go figure, I’m on Lemmy. I imagine there’s a small p-value for correlation between lemmings and not being a Peterson fan). Would love to hear more about what it means to you and how it inspired you, and more detail on what you wanted your phrase to convey.
For example, are you trying to convey a change in perspective or an active and external change. Your initial phrase “fix the devil” sounded active, making me think of enduring through slow, difficult work to achieve a big result. The second phrase, turning hell to heaven, to me sounded more like turning hell to heaven in your mind, i.e. if you spend enough time immersed in it, you will stop hating something and start liking it. This could be positive, e.g. building tolerance, perhaps to a new food, embracing opposing viewpoints, learning to not only put up with but appreciate a ‘devil’ you work/live with as their own person instead of just thinking of how they annoy you. It could also be negative, e.g. Stockholm Syndrome as thought of by another comment on this post (the one criticising the phrasing of “fix” with association to toxic relationships, albeit that was referring to the original phrase, not the hell to heaven one) or becoming indifferent / blind / nihlistic / cynical about the problems of your society and choosing to ignore them to instead live in a false, rose-tinted heaven.
from your comments and clarifications, and what little I know of Jung’s original phrase, I think you intended l to be inspiring / encouraging, so I imagine you’re trying to either convey some message along the lines of:
- the bad times will end given enough time
- you can accomplish great things if you endure suffering for long enough
- there’s joy to be found even in places you initially find only despair
Unlike the other comment, I don’t think you should be overly concerned with the exact words that you use, as most phrases like this are at least partly idiomatic, i.e. they’re not meant to be self-explanatory, you’re meant to tell people what they mean when you teach then the phrase. This also means you shouldn’t feel too bad about bad english, as lots of english phrases don’t make sense out of context.
I think your original phrase is really good, as well as the alternative that you made. I’m not writing this to try to pressure you to make it “better” because it’s already perfect as is, I just don’t fully understand it as is and would like to hear more about what it means to you :)
I like this better than your original quote. As another commenter said, “fixing the devil” can be used as a justification for a victim to stay with their abuser.
Turning hell into heaven can be taken more positively. We’re all products of our environment, but I also think that with effort we can change our environment. But it sure as hell isn’t always easy.
thanks
sorry for bad english