Don't Put All your Eggs in One Basket.

James M Sandbrook of
Wairakei Place, Tokoroa.

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Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.

According to the Speak Good English Movement it means:

‘This is a piece of advice which means that one should not concentrate all efforts and resources in one area as one could lose everything.’

I saw a TV show where a person put all their fruit in the same bag, there was an accident and the bag got crushed, they lost all the fruit. It was said that if the fruit was in many bags, or at least in a couple of bags, then only some of the fruit would have been damaged and they would not have lost it all. In response to all of this the character in the TV show said, “Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket.”

Others have said, “that if you put all your efforts in one place then if it goes wrong you lose it all”, or, “if you put all your efforts or resources into doing one thing so that, if it fails, they have no alternatives left.”

I saw a criminal show years ago where a man had some information on some bad people and they wanted to “get rid of him”. He knew what they were up to, so he cleverly put the information in many people’s hands and told them to only open the packages if he died mysteriously. Because of that the criminals left him alone, knowing that to attack him would be a very foolish thing to do indeed, as they didn't want to go to prison for many years. He didn’t put all his information in the one place, and so even if they got the information in his home they couldn’t access all the other information.

If you have sensitive information give it to other people who you trust and ask them not to open it unless something happens to you. A lawyer can do this for you as well.

Remember, don’t put all your eggs in the same basket, put them elsewhere so that if anything happens to you and your information, other people will also have it.

If a person was to put all their eggs in one basket it could mean to risk losing everything by having only one plan or idea and depend entirely on it for their success. Always have a back up plan or two, just in case.

This idiom, I have read, comes from an old proverb, probably Spanish or Italian, and first found in print during the 17th century. It alludes to gathering all the eggs from your hens into one basket so that if you should drop the basket, you lose all your eggs.

All the best from

James M Sandbrook.

18th of March, 2021.

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