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Phrase: Join the club
One of my first observations while living and working in Japan was that the Japanese love two things: clubs and awards.
Almost every student in school is in a club. Some are in two or even three.
There is a plethora of sports clubs, culture clubs for things such as calligraphy or tea ceremony and then media clubs for photography and broadcasting.
That was never the case in any school I ever attended.
Clubs cost money, and my family never had any.
Very few families had it, to be honest, and that’s why my schools never had any clubs.
Anyways, our new phrase today is join the club, but it’s not for those types of clubs.
This phrase is a way to show empathy and solidarity with your fellow humans who are just as confused, lost or worried as you are.
If one of your colleagues had a presentation that went badly during a company meeting, you could encourage them by saying, ‘Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. Join the club.”
Perhaps someone else has just been disciplined by the boss for slightly shoddy work.
In that case, you could commiserate with them and say, “We’ve all been yelled at by that ***hole, join the club.”
This little phrase, join the club, helps us show solidarity with someone who has had a rough time.
Sometimes, a little bit of empathy is all someone needs to get their spirits up again.
Everyone wants to join a club, even if it is the club of being yelled at by the boss.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.