From My Pleasure to No Worries

The devolution from an expression of delight to two negatives traces our decline as a culture.

No worries? Bad enough the singular worry. Why would I worry? I came to this restaurant filled with gratitude for being alive, in good health with loving family and friends and now you are telling me not to worry. All I requested was a napkin or was it some bread and in return I’m told not to worry. Could it be there is a table across the room next to a suicide bomber which is the one to start worrying?

No Worries has me yearning for those good old days of No Problem, at least it wasn’t plural. When did You’re Welcome get dropped? Granted that didn’t make much sense but a welcome is better than a warning of impending peril.

Don’t mention it or Not at all, had a good run. I want to petition for the return of, My Pleasure or Happy to Oblige. With it might come the restoration of civil discourse and the end of road rage, incivility and vilifying public figures.

When I do a favor for a friend, I really do take pleasure for the opportunity to express my gratitude for their friendship. Is this now subversive in our country where empathy has been relegated to the sucker file and self-aggrandizement is declared a virtue?   

But what if I want to worry? It's like my right not to Have a Nice Day. Even with my napkin and bread the planet is being choked with foul air and homeless people are begging for shelter. There are currently 43 million displaced persons in the world through war or famine. Equatorial regions have been rendered non-arable from global warming.  No worries indeed!

Maybe the servers are talking to themselves trying to make it through another day. Returning to my salad, I'm eating undocumented greens picked, prepared and served with an illegal smile. No Worries has become a mantra against being snatched up by masked men before the next shift. 

We live in an age of obliquity. Not only deviating from moral rectitude but also a time of indirectness. Can I get you a drink? I’m Good. I didn’t ask whether you’ve behaved yourself today or whether you are an ethical person or a good for nothing. I merely asked whether you would care for a drink.

Maybe all this is a form of poetry. It was Emily Dickinson who said to tell it slant. No Worries, No Problem, no really. I'm Good.