From the earliest age, we learn that the right answer is good, how to tell right from wrong. We receive applause for doing the right thing and revered for being right.
Regardless of all our efforts and best intentions, we sometimes get it wrong or are just at fault. It may take another’s insights to inform us and sometimes to our surprise. It may be a quick reaction, an incorrect fact, a perceived hurtful or degrading comment.
Yet even when we appreciate that we may have been wrong, we struggle to apologize. When we do, it is always appreciated and welcomed and will often diffuse a lingering sense of discontent.
We may harbor resentment and discontent for a few hours, days, or even decades. To what purpose? So that we can be right? Does it not cause us pain as well? Who wants to be out of sync. Is it misaligned pride?
If we know we are at fault and cannot admit it and apologize without adding a qualifier or disclaimer ‘but, and or if’ what does it say about us?
Sorry maybe the hardest word to say, yet it may be our redeeming gesture that sets us apart and positively defines us. So fess us, own it, and be big.
Sir Elton John states it well. While, in this case, it speaks to a relationship, it applies in so many elements of life.
