Thank You and Sorry!

When do I thank somebody or apologise? And, when does someone thank me or apologise? There are some people whom you don’t thank, at least I know of in India. They are your parents, your spouse and your children. Language is a very interesting thing. It tries to capture the immense depth of the meaning of the feeling into a word, here its ‘thank you.’ You don’t thank your child who made you a parent. Pause for a while … and see the depth of this feeling called ‘thank you.’ ‘Dhanyavad’ is an Indian equivalent of thank you.

If we commit a mistake we say ‘sorry’. I wonder if my father would have ever said ‘sorry’ or its Indian equivalent to my grandfather. Those days, I guess, thank you and sorry were only felt in hearts and seen in eyes, never expressed in words. In our schooling system ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ are 2 words taught as golden words. It takes different amount of courage to say these 2 golden words depending on various situations.

By thanking somebody sincerely you take the weight off the other person. Somebody encouraged you when it was needed, a doctor who got you well, a teacher who made you understand a concept. In exchange you thanked that person. By thanking her/him you say ‘I am taking the responsibility now on, you don’t worry.’ We also take off the weight from a person when we say ‘I’m sorry.’ Again you take the responsibility and learn to move on. Somebody may argue saying ‘When I am paying for the services I am getting why should I thank somebody?’ Each of us have a ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ threshold. Some say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ for every small thing and for some it takes a lot of energy to utter these words, they don’t say it at all. They think only they deserve thank you and sorry from people around them. All these attributes of ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry are subtle and our system (our body and mind) knows it so well that an essay is not required to measure the quality of these words when uttered by somebody.

Did you ever notice the body language when we use these words? In both these we slightly bend our back and lean forward. We give in. It’s a surrender.

Can you understand what is your threshold of saying ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’? Can you start being conscious of these two words and enjoy the magic that they hold in the word form and in the form of feeling? Can the sound of these words from our mouth come out with a touch from our heart? Its effect on somebody is secondary. What is its effect on me? Can I fathom the depth of these words and be aware of its effect on me when I utter them or hear them?

Thank you. Yes, thank you for this read!