⇥ No apology needed
I always get a chuckle when my kids do something they’re not supposed to, then turn around and exclaim “but I’m sorry!” as if that were the end of a problem. They remind me of Homer’s cries of “It’s my first day!” in Simpson Tide.
While kids who have figured out that apologies, on their own, will get them out of a lot of tight corners are amusing, however, I can’t say the same of adults. Somewhere along their personal development, people are not being advised of the fact that apologizing for a mistake doesn’t fix it.
To tell you the truth, I am not a big fan of apologies in general. I find them completely superfluous—like sugar in your coffee, they’re just empty calories, put there to cover up the inadequateness of your beverage.
In fact, I think it’s fair to say that I don’t really understand apologies, don’t expect them, and don’t care for them.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, there are three types of scenarios that others feel warrant apologies:
- You failed through an act of fate. Even the best can’t take everything into account.
- You failed through incompetence within the most literal sense of the world: you omitted to take something in consideration you should have.
- You gained at my expense, albeit unintentionally. Life turned out the better for you, and you did nothing to stop it.
It’s obvious to me that #1 and #2 don’t need an apology. Of course you’re going to be sorry—the only circumstance in which you won’t is if you screwed up on purpose. So why bother?
As for #3, I’d much rather you were honest with me and gloated. I remember losing an office several years ago to a coworker whose only seniority claim was being better buddies with our mutual boss. Though, in his defence, he didn’t actively try to steal it from me, I took his apology with all the grace of a drunken elephant. He didn’t mean it. I knew he didn’t mean it. He knew that I knew that he didn’t mean it.
Besides, apologies imply the pre-emptive assumption of blame. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that blame can rarely, if ever, pinned on any one person. Useless.
What I prefer to see is people who take control of their mistakes and fix them. Not screwing up should be the preferred goal every time, but screwing up and fixing a mistake sounds tons better to me than screwing up and apologizing for it.
Comments
An apology gives the person you are apologizing to a chance to forgive you.
That being said, if apologies are only words, then, yes, in deed they are worthless. An apology must be followed by action, or it stinks.
When I apologize, it is a statement that I have realized I am at fault and that I would like to take responsibility for my mistake. I noticed that in western culture the civility of apologies is almost a thing of the past, and most people are too proud to apologize and/or simply to weak to bear the responsibility of their actions.