I’m not asking you to strip your refrigerator of feel-good magnets or to toss all of those inspirational pillows. I’m just asking you to be a bit more mindful of the phrases that cross your lips when someone is need of comfort.
I come by my dislike of platitudes honestly, having been raised in a family which never met a cliché it didn’t take to heart, accept as wisdom, and offer up as the sole balm whenever I was upset. It was complicated by the fact that these were in Dutch—but I learned that the language in which a platitude is expressed matters little. My tears were countered with the truism Na regen komt zonneschijn (“After rain comes sunshine”), but even though the sun always came out eventually, it was clear to me that, particularly in Holland, it can rain for days on end, and what did that have to do with why I was crying? When I was disappointed or hurt, someone would inevitably murmur Alles heeft een reden (“Everything has a reason”) even though it didn’t seem, even at a very young age, that this was either reasonable or explanatory. (It still isn’t.)
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