Sunday, March 01, 2009

Sorry

Sorry!

How many times do we hear this word? There are times when we are thankful to say it and thankful to hear it. Times when we truly did not have any intention of offending or being offended.

But sometimes "sorry" is not good enough. We get weary of a person continually excusing less than acceptable behavior with "Sorry!"

At some point, we have to stop doing the things that make us feel the need to apologize! If I am in a bad mood for whatever reason, doesn't it make more sense to take myself out of situations where I will get my feelings hurt or hurt those of others? I know what most of my triggers are. I know (or at least am learning!) what the triggers of most of my loved ones and friends are. I should be able to conduct myself in most situations where I will not have to continually apologize for my behavior.

So in this spirit, I am going to end this short rant.

With no apology!

6 comments:

Melissa said...

Amen!

fiona said...

Amen too!

I'm trying to teach my children that it's good to say "Sorry" when you need to apologize for hurting someone's feelings, or make amends, but I'm also trying to teach them *HOW* they say sorry is actually more important, than why.

Randy Pausch in his book "The Last Lecture" wrote a marvelous chapter on apologies "A Bad Apology is Worse Than No Apology" It's too long to outline here but the premise is that halfhearted or insincere apologizes are often worse than not apologizing at all. It also seems to have an ever decreasing affect too, when it's over quoted and said without any sincerity at all.

In my opinion the very worse kind is the passive aggressive version of the word, in which the person saying sorry is not seeking to be forgiven but rather using "sorry" to justify their behaviour in the first place - hate that!

Well said my friend

Melissa Foster Denney said...

Thanks Karen for such a thoughtful post. Your approach of "taking yourself out of the situation" is interesting and probably a good one. For Lent, I'm working on a similar approach - one that requires me to change my attitude. Your approach may be easier and make more sense.

I always appreciate your advice on matters of the heart. Thanks again.

@ Carrie~ LOL - I recently had such an apology "I wasn't getting the correct answer from you - so I flew off the handle!" DUH! YOU'RE STILL ARGUING WITH ME, THEN~

Karen :) said...

Scoot, don't underestimate the power of attitude adjustments. Sometimes we need those when we CAN'T remove ourselves from the situation. But, often, we can choose to walk away until we can interact properly.

@ Carrie, the problem occurs when people have no real intention of changing behavior. They think that "sorry" will cover them every time. NOT!

SuziQoregon said...

Well said, Karen!!

Eleanor said...

Amen, and amen.

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