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Idiom: Take to heart
When you take something to heart, you take it very seriously, or you take it very personally.
The idiom can be positive or negative depending on the situation involved.
I do my best to be positive, so let’s first examine the idiom’s positive aspects.
Good advice is something that we should all take to heart and treat very seriously.
When we tell young people that studying and working hard will pay off in the long run, we are very proud when they take our advice to heart and follow it.
That’s because helpful information is given to benefit the recipient positively.
When the receiver listens and does as we suggest, we feel good because of our ability to help someone, and they feel good because they can benefit from the advice given to them by others.
Now, let’s examine how taking something to heart can adversely affect a person.
Unfortunately, society appears to be going through a harassment epidemic both in schools and workplaces.
In Japan, we even have maternal harassment where co-workers and management harass pregnant mothers-to-be.
Yeah, I know, crazy, right?
Although this harassment is intended to hurt people, it can turn deadly when the intended victims of bullying take the hurtful comments to heart.
It’s easy to tell harassment victims to ignore the bullies and let the negative comments roll off like water off of a duck’s back.
However, it’s easier said than done when the harassment occurs daily and gradually increases with no end in sight.
Victims may take the comments to heart, gradually coming to believe them. In severe cases, the victim may quit school or their job.
In extreme cases, victims of severe bullying may even decide to do themselves harm.
We should always be careful about what we say: someone may take it to heart.
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.