the.com/early bird catches the worm
Proof that the worm should have slept in too.
means Whoever acts first or arrives earliest gets the best opportunity or advantage, before others even wake up to it.
from A proverb first recorded in English in the 1600s, imagined straight from the barnyard — the bird up at dawn finds the worm still on the surface, while late risers find the ground picked clean. It spread fast as folk wisdom, later clipped into the brisker 'early bird gets the worm,' and eventually spawned 'the second mouse gets the cheese' as its cynical rebuttal.
- origin
- first recorded in english proverbs, 1636
- survivorship bias
- ignores every worm that stayed buried
- counterpoint
- second mouse gets the cheese
- actual lesson
- timing beats talent, most mornings