below the surface.
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WotD: Gloss over
Little problems, inconvenient facts or faults that we’d rather not deal with are all glossed over to make things progress smoothly or avoid a hassle.
I’m not saying that we are all walking around with a small paintbrush and a can of varnish in our back pockets, but human nature intentionally overlooks minor issues to preserve the status quo.
Perhaps it’s part of our coping mechanism so that we can get along with others and avoid or at least reduce conflict in our lives.
The thing is, there are a plethora of opportunities for conflict.
Perhaps your darling always leaves their dirty coffee cup in the sink instead of putting it in the dishwasher.
Although it annoys the heck out of you, you gloss it over as one of their cute little quirks.
On a more serious note, a national government may attempt to gloss over human rights abuses to preserve a trade agreement or avoid embarrassment.
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Some governments have even persisted in glossing over the coronavirus’s severity, saying it is nothing more than the flu or less severe than the common cold.
That’s when glossing something over can become extremely dangerous.
Most often, though, we gloss over minor things in our lives, such as missed anniversaries, birthdays or when someone shows up late for a date or meeting.
Inside, we may be boiling with rage and anger, but on the outside, we gloss it over as nothing more than the minor inconveniences of life.
We may tell ourselves she’s busy, and that’s why she was an hour late for our date.
We should be careful not to allow ourselves to gloss things over when there are more troubling problems below the surface.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least an 8th-grade education (age 13 – 14).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 63.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.