Whenever my siblings and I used to play the blame game after our brawls, my Amma (mother) would always remark, "One thing alone is unable to make a sound. It takes the collision of two to create ruckus." However, since I was a kid, and the world was meant to revolve around me and no-one else, I never took note of it or even tried to understand any of the wise aphorisms passed down to me by Amma.
As we progress through life, sometimes we have to stop and look back on these wise moments that we might have forgotten or missed, to guide us at present. Like my mother said, there is always the involvement of two, and one does not have to be necessarily the culprit. A tale can be told in two very different ways and while we wish to know the appealing one or just pick that one out of preference, the other side is left unknown, unexplored. This way one remains endlessly partially blind.
Now, my mother was not trying to portray her astute self when she made the comment but was merely trying to stop us from pulling each other's hair off and make us see what each of us did wrong. I might not be as violent now, but I sure have gotten into much more serious fights with friends and family.
There are many things that I have learned in college, and many things that I had already learned and forgotten, but were revived one after the other. My time in college can be majorly attributed to building relationships and trying to maintain them. My eyes were so accustomed of being selfish that they never saw anything else other than my version of the story, and my heart so selectively loving that it only poured out empathy to my side. Well, although that gave me peace and assurance for a short period of time, my relationships never got any better nor did my general well being.
I am not saying that an apology from my side was never offered. The apology was embellished and placed with much care onto the concerned hands, however, the apology always lacked purpose. When we apologize, we are understanding our actions that caused harm to the other or trying to see what compelled the other to maim you. But mine used to be the hand me down one with an expensive packaging. While I thought it could quieten the situation down, it just caused a havoc in the minds of both mine and the other which then spiraled into a yet another fight, just this time, a bigger one.
Many of us choose to stay in this state of ignorance, not wanting to know the other side because it is just more comfortable and easier. The relationships that I thought hopeless, not worthy of my time and effort have now become the relationships that I value the most. This drastic change was not due to my heroic choice of trying to listen to them, but their effort in trying to make me listen. It just took a "you hurt me" to make me melt away my version because the idea of me hurting someone else had never occurred as a possibility before. With head lighter than ever, heart more welcoming, I can now say "I am sincerely sorry."
