Saying a Phrase too Much
I never really put much thought into this until someone I am close to suggested that saying the phrase “I’m sorry” too much makes it lose its meaning. In a culture that passes that phrase out too often, the words begin to feel empty and worthless, a trite phrase. This person believes that instead of saying sorry, you should implement behavior changes to show, instead of tell, the other person that you are sorry.
I absolutely believe in implementing behavior change to eliminate future distasteful occurrences in which you would feel obligated to say “I’m sorry”. However, I do not think that there is such a thing as saying empty words. Words in themselves carry so much meaning but they are simply a symbolization of what we are feeling on the inside. The phrase “I’m sorry” may sound simple and blunt, because it is, but if you view it as a small window into the other person’s own world, the meaning could be expansive.
“Now as far as I can see, the basic mistake is, that we’ve invented this wonderful system of language and calculation, and that it is at once too simple to deal with the complexity of the world and also we are liable to confuse that system of symbols with…
