What’s wrong with “sana all”
When I was in a massage spa, I overheard two therapists talking. My therapist said, “Anong gawa ng customer mo?” (What service did your customer avail?) The other therapist said, “Swedish.” Then, my therapist responded, “Sana all.” I have heard this expression in countless ways, and you will see people use it a lot in social media. As with all other things, there is always a subliminal message underneath our every interaction, and we do not notice them unless we become aware of what is happening around us.
To understand what it means, since it is a combination of a Filipino and English word, we have to dissect it. “Sana” means hope or wish. Combined, they mean “I hope everyone is like that” or “I wish everyone has that”. That expression has also several contractions like “naol” and “naall”, and it has its own hashtags in social media. For example, #sanaall has become a trending hashtag on Facebook.
Imagine you told a friend that you were able to buy something. Say for example, a car. His response is “sana all”. If I were in the position of the first person, I will not feel resentful of the second person not happy at first response. Instead, I’ll be concerned with him about the unconscious effort of yearning something you don’t have just because someone has it. The problem lies in the habitual expression of those words.
We are creatures of habit. When we stick to a routine, it becomes embedded to our daily lives and, sometimes, we do it without putting much thought into it. The same applies with using “sana all”. There is a negative connotation to that expression every time you use when there is a positive event in someone’s life. We can’t have it all in life because we were raised in different ways — culturally, socially, intellectually, psychologically, and financially. The expression does not leave us with positive note but rather a feeling tantamount to envy and resentment. After all, hypothetically, if every human being possesses that particular thing, we wouldn’t even think of wishing for it, so logically, wishing for everyone to have that does not make sense.
Instead, let us cultivate a positive experience whenever someone experiences success in their lives by:
- Wishing them well and congratulate them.
- If you really want that for your life, perform self-evaluation first. Maybe, after that, you will realize it’s not something worth pursing, you are happy with, or feasible.
- Accept that we have different timelines and definition of success. Just because someone achieves that at that person’s age does not mean you should.
- Make a conscious effort of establishing the habit of evaluating why you say what you say and why you act the way you do. Maybe “sana all” is just one of the bad habits you need to eradicate from your life
- Practice benevolence. Thank yourself more often even with tiny victories like reading this article.
