Sorry- feeling distressed, especially through sympathy with someone else’s misfortune.

Life is a continual path of choices. Each person will make many choices every day, from when to get up in the morning to what they eat that day.  As we move along that path, there will be opportunities to do good things or bad things. To choose to be kind and considerate of others or to make decisions with our own self-interest at heart. All people are going to make decisions they are not proud of at some point. It is part of being human.  Recognizing the wrong you perceive is difficult, but we all have the power to make it right. Say, “I’m sorry.”  This is the first step in making things right for you.  It all starts with a conscious awareness of the things you have done and do which actually cause harm to others.  Your thoughts will reveal your emotions about the things you have done, the words you have or have not used because of them, and the actions you have or have not taken.  I’m sorry is an important place to start when building understanding.

Sorry About My Pride

Pride is a feeling we all have, and it can be a positive thing, but sometimes we let it get in the way.  There are people out there with such fragile egos that admitting they made even the tiniest of mistakes is a threat to their whole identity.  Don’t be one of these people.  It is your ego, or your false self, speaking these words.  Never be too proud to say you are sorry.

Good people make bad choices all the time. That is a part of the process of life called learning.  Be conscious of your choices and the way they affect other people.  Seeing that your decision hurts someone else isn’t an indictment of you and your character. It is a recognition of humanity in someone else.  I’m sorry is a way to state express your understanding of the pain in another person.  You see them, understand them, and will try to help them.  It is a simple matter of putting someone else’s well-being ahead of your own.  It costs nothing, so don’t be too proud to use this phrase.

How Can I Make It Right

Along with the honest sentiment of being sorry for your choice or action, the question should be; How can I make it right?  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and we learn this from physics. It is true in other parts of life too.  Hopefully, when you have hurt someone or made a poor choice, there is a way to make it right. Even the worst of behaviors can be atoned for in some way.  It starts by taking responsibility for yourself and your behavior and working toward doing what is right.

Most often, the thing to do is to stop doing the thing that is hurting someone else. That is the moment of choice because either you will put someone else ahead of yourself or are not.  I’m sorry it loses its power if clearly, you are not sorry enough to change your behavior. If you are the source of someone’s misfortune, then show your contrition by stopping that behavior. Stop making the same mistake over and over again. Use them to discover how to live a better life.

Sorry Doesn’t Fix Everything.

Simply saying that you are sorry doesn’t fix everything, and even bargaining a manner to make things right might not do the trick. Having feelings about remorse in the way you treated someone is the first step in your humanity.  And who says it is your job to fix everything.  We can do the only thing to try to become a little bit better a person than we were yesterday. To leave a little more joy in the world and less anger and pain.  To understand where you were wrong, the mistakes you made, intentional or unintentional, and sorry for them.  You can’t control the reactions of others, and who is to say what their emotional state is?  You are responsible for your actions and the footprint that leaves in the world.  This mark begins by being more conscious of your thoughts, emotions, words, and actions today and taking responsibility for feeling and saying you are sorry when you are wrong.

“If we have made an error, done a wrong, been unjust to another or ourselves, or, like the Pharisee, passed by some opportunity for good, we should have the courage to face our mistake squarely, to call it boldly by its right name, to acknowledge it frankly and to put in no flimsy alibis of an excuse to protect an anemic self-esteem.” – William George Jordan.

“An apology is a good way to have the last word.”-Unknown

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”-Paul Boese