In the western world "Sorry" and "Thanks" could be the most used words in day today life in both professional and personal life. If you follow the monsoon winds to eastern mainland of India this usage generally gets limited to professional life. In this collection of words I aim at exploring why these words are missing from life of Indians and why we need them.
Why we say NO to these words?
Well, these words are not part of our habitual expressions for different reasons, but can be grouped into 3 main reasons. The loss of importance of these words, apparent insignificant nature of our work and our desire to build better relationship.
1 # They are most (ab)used and have lost their importance
Our mind get used to things which it sees or hear over more often and tend to downgrade its importance till these very things go missing. The words "Sorry" or "Thanks" fall into this category as these are very commonly used words. In professional environment, "Thanks" and "Sorry" are most used in every form of communications. One of these words can be found in most in emails ("thanks" being part of some email signatures) as its convenient to use, whether they mean it or not. The lack of value for these words tend to make us feel they are insignificant and hence discourage its usage among close friends.
2 # All our daily favours/mistakes feel insignificant
Life is mostly about mundane daily stuff and rarely about crisis. This means that due to their boring nature most of things we do, which may be important but don't apprear to us as significant. So when we interact with close friends and colleagues during this 'not so significant' work we discourage each other in saying thanks/sorry.
3 # Our desire to build better relationship
For us Indians the strength of our relationship is defined by how informal the other person is with you and surely usage of 'Sorry' and 'Thanks' makes that relationship more formal and hence 'weaker'. So every occasion when someone expresses these words 'thup' comes the response, 'Please, don't need to say it to (good friend like) me'.
Why we should say express it?
Irrespective of the scale and impact of favour or the mistake, it is very important to acknowledge and hence there is a need to express those "sorry"s and "thank you"s for each and every time. Key is to mean it when you express it. If you say it for the sake of it then you are faking it which is not good. If you are insensitive in recognizing these situations you can always build being sensitive by being "present" in those situations and giving a thought about what just happened. Once you understand and acknowledge situations you will start expressing these words and not just saying it.
It then means that you are not taking the other person for granted, how small may be his/her help is (in case of thanks) or how small may be your mistake is (in case of sorry). So the bottom line is don't take anything for granted and express appropriately when felt and needed. This whole hearted acknowledgement of every small, mundane situations can only strengthen relationship and bonding. Not saying "thanks" or "sorry" with an illusion that the relationship already at its best (or will get better) will only mean that slowly but surely you are digging a grave for your relationship.
