Sorry or Apology

“You are not too old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.” ­ Rainer Maria Rilke

Some people say words like I ‘m sorry in many situations. Sorry seems to be a generic response just like the words hi or, how are you? So, for instance, the phrase, Sorry to bother you , is an apologetic expression used to imply regret for using up someone’s time as in asking a question that the person has no answer for. Some public examples recently that were in the news include a Senator and a CEO who regretted their public candor. They were not sorry nor did they apologize. The following poem conveys this difficult feeling:

Three words, eight letters, so difficult to say.

They’re stuck inside of me; they try and stay away.

But this is too important to let them have their way.

I need to do it now; I must do it today.

I am sorry. ˗ Author Unknown

Sometimes a person might feel guilty over many things and that person is always saying, “sorry” about everything. Guilt and feeling guilty can be a remorseful awareness of a personal sense of sorry-ness. It is a critical self-judgment that one may carry for a long time. A person might feel responsible for an offense or a wrongdoing and instead of apologizing the person carries the guilt and does not rectify the issue. Often a guilty behavior could be seen in a person that is always saying, “I am sorry” seemingly about everything versus a particular issue that needs to be cleared up.

Conversely an apology can be an excuse to act in a self-protective defense by justifying a flaw or fault. The word sorry is often substituted for the word apologize like saying “I am sorry to be late” instead of an apology over being late for an appointment, such as “I apologize for my lateness because I was caught is a traffic jam.”

The problem with saying I am sorry often is that a person is telling him or herself that they are in a mental state of a felt sense of loss, sorrow, mourning, grief or disappointment which is really not true. Overtime seemingly always feeling sorry, this dynamic might cause a person to constantly feel sad, down or blue.

Consider that there are different levels or feeling aspects to an apology versus just saying “I apologize.” One attribute of apology might be feeling regret and expressing remorse by writing a note or stating it in an open court room situation to a victim. This would be owning a personal responsibility and the response-ability would include an admittance or acceptance for example, wounding or hurting someone intentionally or unintentionally. Perhaps another might be to make a restitution to make things right again with another person. By taking action to make amends would be an active apologetic compensation. A genuine reparation can include asking for forgiveness. There are many different ways to ask such as in a poetic way.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold ˗ William Carlos Williams