What supposedly deep and profound phrases sound like utter nonsense to you? Why?

My pet hated phrase is “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.” What is it supposed to mean? That you can handle anything? That if there is something you can’t handle, you can assume that that thing magically won’t happen to you? What about people who have mental breakdowns in response to trauma? Is that just one way of “handling it”? What about people who commit suicide? I can’t help but think that the people who say this phrase have merely been lucky and never had anything horrible happen to them.

Similar feelings about “Everything will work out in the end.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is another one I don’t get. If I get in a horrible accident and I am not killed, but am paralyzed, I am not stronger for that. I might be mentally stronger eventually, but it’s like the people who say this phrase think that when something awful like that happens to a person, they just very quickly learn to cope with it, and are net better off afterwards than if it hadn’t happened. I don’t think people who say this phrase understand that trauma hurts people for a long time or even permanently, and leaves damage and scars, and that not everybody “gets over” everything that happens to them.

@Mariah named ones that came to my mind also. The “makes you stronger” is a load of crap- just ask my friend, who had a breast and cancerous lymph nodes removed, about how hard it is to work in her garden wearing the lymphedema arm sleeve and feeling exhausted even years after her surgery and chemo.

And I too have had friends that ended their lives after not being able to handle what had been happened in their lives.

“Get a life!”
“If a tree falls in the forest, and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?”
“Vader betrayed and murdered your father.”

Most truisms contain an insight that can serve a purpose and resonate from a certain point of view, but don’t hold as general truths, which is often how they’re asserted in common conversation. The counterpoints to them, and seeing where they don’t hold true, is often more insightful, useful and true than accepting them as truths or axioms.

Everything happens for a reason.”

“I’m sorry for your loss”
They’re not lost just dead & are you saying you’re responsible?

@janbb For some reason, I like that phrase. It implies that there is an existence of luck or karma, neither of which I believe in.

Perhaps it is the positive outlook of the comment. Then again, if an acquaintance were to state, “I was just diagnosed with a terminal illness,” and the reply was, “Everything happens for a reason,” then the respondent deserves a free pass to an empathy class.

The one that confounds me is, “Have a blessed day.” Here in the southern US, it is pronounced “bless-ed”.

It is used by, what I assume are, well-being US Southern Christian folk. I’ve never heard this phrase used in any other Christian-dominant countries visited, nor in the northern US.

What exactly does it mean? Is the person stating this as a request that their god grant some favorable action within my next 24 hours or that they might be able to do this based upon their faith? Is there a belief that saying it will earn brownie points?

While it makes me wonder about the intent every time I hear it, it’s chalked up as a departure comment offered without malice or even a thought as to what it might mean to the reciever.

@ucme That makes quite a lot of sense.

@ucme Maybe saying “I’m sorry ” means something a little different in Britain than when people say it here. There is the “I’m sorry” of apology here but one can also say “I’m sorry” when they mean “I feel badly about this.” And the dead person is lost to the survivor so that also makes sense too.

But obviously, we each have things that bug us and that’s fine too.

“Someone else’s opinion of you is none of your business.”

I know it for the most part is supposed to mean, don’t worry about what other people are saying and rise above their bad attitudes. But it just sounds like a buzz phrase to justify catty, backstabbing and two faced behaviour. It gives me the impression that I have no right to have a retaliating opinion against someone else taking about me behind my back. I just feel that when someone is talking about me behind my back, I’m not the one who is at fault they are for being so two-faced.

Oh and the most over-used phrase ever that is only ever used to censor people. “Opinions are like assholes… everyones got one.”

“Sorry for you loss” makes perfect sense. You have lost the opportunity to ever talk to that person again, or interact or laugh or to be a part of your life. It is a loss. In that context it means someone feels bad for you. It’s like saying, “I’m so sorry she got into that car accident.”

@janbb Oh I get the definition of sorry in the statement just making a gag out of it but it’s a phrase that i’ve never been fond of, like you say, different strokes

The phrase “It’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.”
I think it should be “It’s better to be in love than to have never loved at all.”
Years ago when I couldn’t find love I started drinking.
Now after having loved for many years and lost I started drinking again.
I guess I’m waiting to see how it’s better?

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

After the rain comes the sunshine.

Well duh, scientifically speaking after it’s done pissing fuckin sunshine is going to happen eventually, even if it’s like two weeks away. What a shit saying for life’s hardships, I mean just because something shitty just got done happening, doesn’t mean everything gets all better and shit. Rain will always come back if this saying has to be such a metaphor.

@Berserker I hate phrases like that, when someone drops something obvious and mundane and thinks he said the biggest truth ever.

Yeah, although I kind of prefer that over the nature that most likely accompanies such sayings; dismissal and indifference. It’s like if you don’t mean it just keep qiuet.

“Karma comes back around.” There are many people who make a habit of screwing others, financially, emotionally, career-wise, etc., and they go through life without seeming to ever have anything bad come their way.