Am I wrong in almost hating that saying, "have a blessed day".
Last edited Mon Jun 3, 2024, 01:33 PM - Edit history (1)
and I don’t know why it bugs me, it just does. 
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I'll try to remember it because I am sure there are other occasions where it is appropriate.
"have a blessed day" and saying "god bless you" (or, usually, "g'bless you" or just "bless you"
after you sneeze.
in the case of "god bless you", that's pretty much the standard, automatic, american response when someone sneezes. there are other, more regional sayings, the most amusing (to me) is "scat", which is meant to tell the devil not to enter your soul during your moment of weakness as you sneeze
i say "gesundheit", which is german for "to your health", but my mother was born in austria and that's the standard saying there. in spanish, one says "salud", which just means "health". point is, other languages don't feel the need to inject religion in that situation, but in america it's the standard response, to the point where many people don't even think of it as religious (even though it blatantly is).
in any event, i just usually take it as it was intended, as the automatic, standard polite thing to say when someone sneezes.
but there's a difference between that and "have a blessed day". here, there is an obvious and i'd say more standard saying, which is "have a nice day". you can even strengthen it if you like. "have a great/fantastic/wonderful/amazing day".
so unlike the sneezing situation, here "god bless you" is using an overtly religious statement when a secular one would be perfectly acceptable and normal. so it definitely has the feel of only partly being polite; it also seems to have a side agenda of announcing their religiosity, with perhaps an attempt to feel out yours.
now, to back off from the stark dichotomy a bit, i'll allow that many people were brought up (i.e., trained) to say "god bless you" when someone sneezes as an automatic gesture, and in practice, they likely don't think of it as religious. but the other, other hand, this then feels like making allowances for old people using racially insensitive words or tropes because that was accepted "in the old days".
in any event, i never pick fights about it, i just ignore it or say thank you and move on. but yeah, it rubs me the wrong way, "have a blessed day" more so than "god bless you", but i just mentally note them as probably at least a bit religiously insensitive/oblivious and deal with them accordingly.
If it's the person saying it their go to expression to say goodbye, then so be it. It's not going to rock my boat or upset my day. I have other more important issues to attend to.
If it gives them a sense of well-being, "Then God Bless Them"
Quite honestly, that doesn't bother me. It's the same as someone saying, " I hope something good happens to you today."
Depending on relationships dynamics, I can be extremely reserved or extremely outspoken. Obviously the more I know the other person the more comfortable I am with being myself.
If a total stranger told me, "have a blessed day!" I generally smile and simply say "thank you" or "you too". This would be me being reserved.
If someone that I've known for years told me to have a blessed day, I would generally have a smart ass answer ready to go with some hearty laughter to go along with my smart ass answer. This is me being outspoken.
You can hate what you want. You can like what you want. Just try to remember, most people go through hard times in this life so just be kind no matter what annoyances pop up.
Also, life is too short. Make sure to tell your loved ones that you love them when you can.
I'm reading this all back to myself as I type this and now I'm feeling like an old lady. What the hell is happening to me?
Satan issues blessings too. 
