When I was in secondary school, my friends in NPCC used to love use the term "brother". like "eh brother" or "yi qi zuo la, wo men shi brother ma" [do it together la, we are brothers]
I've quickly learnt to discard the term from my vocabulary after I left sec 4.
It wasn't because I didn't believe that we were in fact, brothers, so to speak, but because I believed it too much. It became a reminder of that almost betrayal, not something that someone did intentionally, but a sort of social contract that both parties weren't aware of, but somehow he broke it.
I don't use it nowadays, except for people I don't particularly care about, but for some reason need something out of them, like when I need a person-in-charge to close one eye while I use some facility.
I'm in university now, and there's another term I've grown to despise.
"The bigger picture"
There are 2 people I used to respect that use it as a way to justify their actions, but MY own opinion is that if that's your justification, it means you have not done your job as well as you should have. Because that term never comes out as anything other than an excuse, like I was lazy and couldn't be bothered. Except in this case, they did bother but in a way that produced a certain set of problems. My personal problem with this is that it doesn't necessarily come with a solution or even an implicit promise to get a better solution. It's just a way to shut people up. Because I wouldn't even be speaking to you about this if you hadn't overlooked it.
The first time I heard it, it really shattered my confidence. I thought I was in the wrong for thinking that much in detail, like I really shouldn't think that far ahead. But I've since spoke with those more experienced than myself and it seems more and more that for those I've asked anyway, there isn't really such a thing as asking too many questions. Someone at that stage of planning should be aware of all consideration, not just "the bigger picture", and if they've overlooked something, they, themselves, will try to work out a solution alone or with the person who raised the consideration.
So I've felt a bit better after that.
But even after speaking to other uninvolved friends about it, I still have that nagging doubt, because I can never adequately describe that things that I say or the questions that I ask, and they are never around to assess the situation without my biases since I'm explaining the situation to them after the fact.
So yeah, words and stuff.
~~~
As an aside, I've realized that we are most heavily influenced by our first experience with something. Like in RHOC, most of us are shaped by our experiences as secretaries in year 1, as opposed to anything else. And inevitably, most people will think that their year 1 is the best camp that they made happen.
But what interests me is that we seem to have different yardsticks by how we measure the success of each our our own experiences and why it is "justified" to be the best one. For example, I felt that my first year was the best because we managed to do something incredibly large in scale and hasn't been done in 10 years because of the difficulty, scale and actual human danger, but also that my batch were more independent and competent in their own areas to the point where you can trust them to get things done. On the other hand, I spoke with a senior once and she said her year was the best not because of reasons regarding execution or even the campers. She just said that it was the best because they were the most bonded and had the most fun as a group. For me, I would never consider that "success" other than a sort of consolation prize, but she truly believed that that particular bond outweighed whatever camp they actually made.
It's really interesting still though.
