Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
If you’re like me, you’ve recently been thinking about apologizing. With a 3-year-old discovering how funny it is to kick mom and dad, my wife and I have found ourselves repeating “say sorry” throughout the day. We’re trying to build that habit of apologizing.
Having spent a good amount of time around children in an academic setting, I know how hollow those apologies are. Many times a student has been instructed to apologize to me for some behavior, not always a behavior that I didn’t even take offense to. The child lets out the droning “I’m sorry” often with averted eyes, and the adults in the room are supposed to be happy that the child went through the motions.
I understand the principle of these practices. It’s important to build a mechanical habit and even a societal expectation of apologizing before a child can feel and/or articulate remorse, guilt, mutual cooperation, or social contract theory if you’re in my class.
There is a societal awareness and introspective ability that, for many, doesn’t come until later in development, if it comes at all. This early habit training sets the structure for later application of emotional intelligence. It’s like the plywood form that is constructed before concrete is poured.
As a slight tangent, Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh have a book “The Path: what Chinese Philosophers can teach us about the good life.” For a philosophy text, it’s a pretty easy read. Among other things, it offers fantastic insight into the importance of early habit forming as it relates to building a functioning society. The whole culture engages with and supports routine habit building so society functions in predictable manners.
The issue that bothers me is that for too many of us, that’s as far as it goes. Culturally, we have come to accept the habitual apology and even allow it as equivalent to the genuine article.
Just like when a student would apologize to me, everyone in the room knew it wasn’t real, we in society know when an apology is heartfelt. We know what a real apology is, in no small part because we, the person being apologized to, are half of the act of apologizing. It takes two to apologize.
There’s a fascinating website, sorrywatch.com. The site analyzes apologies from academic and religious to artistic and fashion apologies. They praise where it is deserved and identify why it is so. The site also gleefully disassembles bad apologies and explains why some apologies aside from not working, make the situation worse.
In part, “sorrywatch” holds that we have so many bad apologies, both in public and private, because the habit of hollow apologies was set, never followed up on with emotional intelligence, and then the behavior spread. Afterall, it’s a lot easier to say “sorry” than to be “sorry” and take responsibility for that. To help fight the bad apology plague, the site provides six steps to a good apology.
Use the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize.” (“Regret” is not apology!)
Say specifically what you’re sorry FOR.
Show you understand why the thing you said or did was BAD.
Be VEEERY CAAAREFUL if you want to provide explanation; don’t let it shade into excuse.
Explain the actions you’re taking to insure this won’t happen again.
Can you make reparations? Make reparations.
There’s a state of maturity at which a member of society should not offer or accept the hollow apologies of youthful habit forming. “Sorrwatch” has some good advice and examples. The best way to break a bad is to practice good ones.
