by Madison Asher
Important reminder for the humans out there: we WILL get lost and we WILL mess up. These are embedded in our human nature and we don’t need to say sorry for being human. How can we explore acknowledgement without apology? We make a wrong turn, we get lost, we play an off-beat rhythm in the jam session, our pitch falters while harmonizing with other voices and a myriad of other examples. Yes we can acknowledge that it happened but we don’t need to apologize that it happened. If we overuse apologies they will be too dull to mean anything by the time we want to deeply apologize and mean it.
Forgiveness won’t feel as powerful. It’s a quality of supply and demand, that more of something will make it less valuable to the consumers. In this case, the consumer is the person you want to ask for forgiveness. So remember to use it as you would any other valuable currency, like money, goods or services. Your apology has a value and you have the ability to enrich its power or drain it by choosing when and how often to use it. Notice the next time you feel compelled to say sorry for an ordinary occurrence of being human.
Come practice mistakes with us on purpose. Notice how often you may want to say sorry for something as silly as starting before cued in or forgetting the original rhythm. Perhaps redirect to a good old fashioned “whoops” and move on. Save your apologies for when you truly seek forgiveness.
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