two words
Several years ago, late 1990’s, I was siting on a white sandy beach in Sarasota Florida with a few colleagues. Colleagues might be a bit of a stretch, we didn’t work for the same school, but we all did the same thing all across the country and had formed friendships and partnerships in an effort to help high school students find the best educational environment. We all offered a four year bachelor’s degree in fine art. Each school while offering very often the same thing, Painting, Photography, Design, Illustration, sculpture, ceramics, etc. Some schools had different focus in those areas. One school was best for automotive design, one was best for medical illustration, one for photography, ceramics, one was better for something like Disney.
As we sat there in-between meetings to chart out the next year of recruitment across the country, the topic of those two simple words came up, thank you. I had been thinking about writing a book about ‘thank you’ and mentioned that. Beth from Maine, her eye’s lit up, that’s a great idea! That was encouraging, I held her in high regard. And because more than once I’ve thought about writing a book.
Today I started thinking about the two words, I’m sorry. Maybe it’s just me, but have you ever noticed how people apologize for things that are out of their control or shouldn’t have to apologize for? But often the apology that really is needed, needed to be heard or should be said, rarely happens?
Four words, that just seem so simple to me. It may be my imagination, but I’ve felt that since that conversation and a bit before it, I have said thank you more than some. Maybe more than most? Maybe not? But if feels that way. Because it’s simple and it costs me nothing. It doesn’t have to be because someone pulled me out of the way of an accident, thank you. Or made some kind of grand gesture, two words for a simple gesture is good too, thank you. Moving their cart and themselves out of the middle of an aisle in a store so others can get past, thank you. Gesturing for you to go ahead, thank you. Someone picking up a piece of trash on the sidewalk in your town, thank you.
I’m sorry. Being in the way of someone getting down the aisle in a store, I’m sorry. Dropping trash on the sidewalk in your town, I’m sorry. Believing someone’s story, not discounting them or their story. Believing them and if a bad story, maybe just say, I’m sorry.
But what I hear most often is an I’m sorry for something that the person saying it has no control over. But they are saying it because maybe they think someone will complain. Think they are weak. Or not believe their story. Probably because they may not even believe it them selves. Like they have done this thing on purpose and now need to apologize. We should stop apologizing for, number one; crying when talking about someone dying. Or the injustice of a love one as victim and even criminal.
This may be a repeat, but I had been thinking for a while, that old saying about walking in another shoes, just wasn’t ‘fitting’ right with me. It wasn’t making sense. How could I truly know another experience. I didn’t know enough of their history to know what in their life could impact a situation and how they would respond or react to it. Then I heard Brene Brown talking to “O”;
“So the idea of walking in someone else’s shoes and trying to understand what they are feeling has no merit. The call is much more difficult and powerful and that is, to ask the person for their story for what it is like in their shoes and to believe them – not about guessing what they are feeling – – why do we think we have to walk in other people shoes? The hard part is the believing part. Because it either challenges what I want to be true about the world or challenges my idea that there is one experience of the world. Or it makes me accountable in some way that makes me uncomfortable.”
We will forever have problems with believing someone’s story, some will never be okay with the vulnerability of uncomfortable.
I watch weird television. Mostly because I can’t bring myself to listen to what people say about others, or see what we are doing to others so I watch crime shows and have been a bit in a rabbit hole lately of a show on youtube where this couple go around Oregon, mostly Portland, buy abandoned storage units and then sell that either in live auction or your typical for sale sites. And crime shows and people talking about the crime or injustice that has happened to them or a love one. They get emotional, cry and apologize. The two on Youtube apologize because the HVAC in the storage facility is noisy and it might impact the audio. They apologize to people who complain in the comments about how they run their business, or how they think they run their business. Or how they interact with each other. If you watch and pay attention, it seems they are having fun, rib each other and those complaining or saying things are the ones with the issues. Razz each other all you want! As long as they treat me the buying customer well, that’s all I care about. And I would bet the fee to buy one of those units that they do that ten fold.
People who apologize for crying because their loved one was brutally murdered or their loved one was wrongfully accused of a crime, evidence to prove it and they are still either being prosecuted or incarcerated 5, 10, 20 or 30 years. Or they did in fact commit a crime. Unless you are the one who did the crime, don’t apologize for them. You have nothing to apologize for unless you drove them to the crime, then that’s a different story.
Why are we not apologizing for the things that actually we should be apologizing for? The things that we have done that will impact others? Things that we have done that could have been avoided or represent such a narrow concept or ideology that it impacts others negatively.
Well, I guess we would have to have awareness to a certain degree that we even know that we have done or said something that is worthy of, I’m sorry.
I have a friend who will randomly post on Facebook, “I love you”. A few years ago, 2017 I posted on;
So much was happening that was adversely impacting others that I was at a loss as to what I could or should do. I couldn’t apologize for the masses. Much of what was happening was out of my control, completely. Same as today, but I can still say both as often as I can. Maybe someone or one person saw that I’m sorry that day and needed to see it. Even to say I’m sorry to themselves for something. Maybe we should all do that from time to time.
I’m sorry.
Thank you.