Clichés

Why do people hate cliches?

I just searched the internet for this very question.

Apparently, some say that cliches generalize our specific human experiences.

Cliches aren’t creative.

Cliches swallow uniqueness.

And maybe they do, in a way.

But maybe we need that in our lives more than ever.

Cliches remind us that even though each one of us is different,

we are all so similar.

And it’s our similarities that we have to celebrate more so than our differences,

especially in a time like now.

We judge each other so much on materialistic and trivial things,

and cancel each other rather than forgive each other for our human-ness.

Because our humanity is our similarity:

our very presence on this earth,

our millions of years of evolution to become this very species,

our shared instincts with every other animal,

and our personal, yet shared, struggles and pains.

Cliches are what we may need to hear.

And when we disregard them,

we are dismissing our connectedness

and empathy.

Maybe we all hate cliches

because we want so badly to be different than everyone else.

We want to believe our lives are special.

To feel worthy.

We may need to hear that we aren’t as unique or different as that guy sitting at the bar,

or that CEO,

or that person sleeping on the street.

When the fact that we are all the same

is the very cliche

that will heal us

and yet we run from.