In an effort to keep my conscience — if not my side of the street — clean, I’ve heard myself say, “I’m sorry for anything I might’ve done that hurt you.”
A real-speak translation of that statement sounds something like this: I don’t think I did anything wrong but I’m willing to apologize if it will make this go away. I might also add: I accept no responsibility for any part I played in whatever went wrong. And I have zero interest in examining my side of the street to see what kind of junk might be piling up at the curb.
In thinking about this back-handed, easy-way-out apology, I looked up the word “apology” in my 1933 Roget’s Thesaurus (which falls into the category of things I’d grab in the event of a fire). For word geeks like me, it offers four options in nuance: excuse, vindication, penitence and atonement. Sounds like a lot of wiggle room in the word “apology” if I’m in the mood to rationalize and justify behavior.
Before I toss off an apology, shouldn’t I examine, not how the other person reacted to what I said or did, but what I actually said or did? What were my motives? What negative undercurrent might have bled through into my tone of voice or word choice? Was I judging? Attempting to control? Minding someone else’s business instead of my own? Unreasonable in my expectations? Irritated by traffic and taking it out on someone else?
Then, instead of plea bargaining with my conscience, I might decide to say, “I’m sorry I wasn’t very patient yesterday…wasn’t completely honest this morning…didn’t listen to your side before deciding I was right.”
Of course, if I make that kind of transparent and vulnerable apology, I’m also implying some intention to change my behavior. That’s a lot harder than “whitewashing,” “glossing over” or – my favorite synonym in my vintage Thesaurus — “helping a lame dog over a stile.”
Now aren’t you sorry you don’t have a 1933 Roget’s?
Does one apologize for the sins of their youth or is it when you are mature enough to realize it was youthful foolishness you accept no apology needed?
What a great question. And I don’t presume to have a definitive answer. So here are some more questions instead.
* How do I decide if it’s youthful foolishness or something that needs to be set right?
* If it’s something that needs to be set right, is it enough to apologize or is some other action needed in order to “clean up my side of the street”?
* Have I changed my behavior or am I willing to change my behavior?
* How much damage did I do? How lasting was the damage? How many people were harmed?
I guess I’m not so much a believer in apologies as I am a believer in acknowledging when I was wrong and making that the first step in changing myself and my actions.
What do you think?
i’m only presumptive. In youth most don’t truely understand the value of their surroounings, covenants, family, other peoples posessions. So when a maturing comes and one reflects on value and a conscience is pierced, is it purged by the statement “when I was a child I did childish things”.
The thing I try to remember about the things I did in my youth are the things that grew me up into the person I am today. All my mistakes, times when I showed a complete lack of judgment, times when I was just downright selfish and self-centered — for whatever reason it apparently took all of that to grow my soul. So I try not to heap regrets on that soul. Because you’re right, when I was a child, I did childish things. Thank God for the maturing, right T.P.?