15 minutes agoAuthor: Shivakant Shukla
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Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect in this world. We all do this sometimes, knowingly or unknowingly, when something of ours hurts someone’s heart. Making a mistake is not bad, what is bad is not accepting the mistake. Mistakes will not be that big if you say sorry for them. But as easy as it is to say or write ‘I’m sorry’, it is not as easy to truly feel it from the heart and apologize.
- Why is it so difficult to apologize?
- Why and how should one apologize?
- What is the perfect way to apologize?
- How does not admitting our mistakes affect our relationships?
today’s relationship In this column we will try to find answers to some of these questions.
Why is it difficult to apologize?
If it were that easy then everyone in the world would accept their mistakes and apologize and there would not be so many fights and disputes.
A social science study on this was published in the research journal ‘Sage’. According to this study, some of the main reasons for people not apologizing are as follows-
- They don’t really care about the other person.
- Apologizing hurts their self-image.
- They feel that apologizing will do no good anyway.
Why is it important to apologize?
If you realize your mistake and accept it and say that it will not happen again, then this is an apology. Apologizing or saying sorry shows that you regret what you did or said. You know it was wrong and you will try harder to prevent it from happening again in the future.
Not apologizing when you are wrong can be detrimental to personal and professional relationships. This can also lead to anger, resentment, and hostility, which can increase over time.
True forgiveness means learning from mistakes.
Apologizing or accepting a mistake in a relationship strengthens your relationship. However, this is not as easy as people think because your ego or nature does not allow you to do it.
A sincere apology is one that conveys genuine empathy, remorse, and regret, as well as a promise to learn from your mistakes. In other words, you need to truly admit that you have done something wrong that you are sorry for.
When to apologize?
Knowing when to apologize is as important as knowing how to apologize. Understand it from the pointers given below.
- If you suspect that something you have done, intentionally or accidentally, has hurt someone else, it is important to apologize and clarify the situation.
- If what you have done had happened to you, you would have felt bad. If it is so then obviously others have also felt bad. In such a situation, an apology must be made.
- Apologizing not only gives you a chance to ‘admit’ to your mistakes, but also reveals whether what you think you did was right or wrong.
- Even if you did not do anything intentionally, but unknowingly your words hurt or hurt someone, still apologizing is the right decision.
While a sincere apology can help improve a relationship, people often don’t want to do it. Admitting that you were wrong is very difficult. Understand in the graphic below what things are important to keep in mind while apologizing.
it’s never too late to apologize
If people leave your life before you get a chance to apologize, or situations get so bad that it doesn’t seem possible to apologize, remind yourself that it’s never too late to apologize. Even if you think the idea of reconciling is hopeless, it’s still worth a try. It’s not good to suppress emotions, especially if you have a desire to make things right.
If you feel like you should give up trying to rebuild a relationship with someone, think about what it would feel like to live with regrets. If you have hurt someone you love (whether that love is romantic or not) you should never give up.
Why is forgiveness always expected from the younger ones?
We have seen since childhood that the younger ones always apologize to the elders. Society also expects the same. Have you ever heard any parents saying sorry to their children or teachers to their students or any boss to his employees? No.
Apologizing also becomes difficult because there is a power equation associated with it. We need to rise above this mentality and change ourselves. In case of committing a mistake, parents should also apologize to their children and elders should apologize to the younger ones so that children can understand the power of forgiveness.
Children should be taught that it has nothing to do with age, power, position, ego and arrogance. Whenever we commit a mistake, we should apologize very simply and politely.
And finally the most important thing. After all, why is apologizing good for our physical and mental health? What does apologizing change within us?
