Cliché Statements - Bored with them; Can't live without them!

Be it an official meeting or a social gathering...be it one on one interaction or one to many...be it a thought shared via social media or expert opinions - there is no dearth of clichés used. Problem is not just lack of originality, but the greater problem is boredom-cum-switch-off that I suffer hearing one too many.

As students, we are still keen on originality. At that age it is truly difficult to believe in statements such as: "everything happens for a reason" OR "grass is always greener on the other side". Try explaining a teenager nursing a broken heart that everything happens for a reason and for the good. Or - tell a management student the issue with perception error in green-ness of grass, when he is in bottom 10% of his batch's pay-scale. At that age, we truly want to prove these statements are wrong. Blame it another cliché: common sense is not so common!

Regular usage really starts in work-life...where we have a meetings that somehow become about one-upmanship. While we hear many statements such as: "throw a wrench in the works", "did your homework", "all in a day's work"...we forget that using more of these statements doesn't make us sound smart, instead we appear to be unimaginative. This is exactly what my grade VII English teacher warned against and wanted better for us - she wanted us to answer questions in our own language, not how it was written in the text book.

Irrespective of how I feel about using clichés, I have realised that avoiding them all together is a difficult ask. With age, I have come to believe is many and thus see the need for using them at an apt moment. Some of them have almost become part of my natural thought process. I am guilty of using "everything happens for a reason and for the good" the most.

I can't completely place my finger on it, but I believe I would be better if I could take sometime and think outside the box. But with my fingers in many pies, I don't get enough time...I end up burning the candle at both ends and still barely manage. I see light at the end of the tunnel though, I will manage to make ends meet and somehow achieve work-life balance.

Cliché Statements - Bored with them; Can't live without them!