I'm known as someone who says sorry way too many times. If you complain about something, I say I’m sorry. If you’re going through something tough, I say I’m sorry. If you get hurt by someone else or you fall down, I say I’m sorry.
I’ve gotten a lot of comments here and there about my excessive apologizing. “Oh, you apologize too much,” or, “It’s OK, it’s not your fault,” or, “You’re not really sorry, so you don’t have to say it so much.” I’ve heard that because I say sorry so much that my apologies don’t mean anything, or that I don’t actually mean it. Then I say sorry about being sorry and I just feel bad about being sorry in the first place.
But now there's one thing I’m going to stop apologizing for. I'm not sorry for being sorry anymore. Now, hear me out. As an example, I have a very close friend who has been going through a lot lately, and she comes to me to vent and for advice. Whenever she’s talking to me about what she’s going through I slip in a sorry here and there, because I truly am. I tell her, “I am so very sorry that boy broke your heart and made you question so much. It’s not fair to you.” Because it’s not fair to her, and I am sorry. I’m not apologizing because I think it’s my fault, because I’m apologizing for him or because it’s simply word filler in my sentences. I am truly and deeply sorry she got so hurt. The definition of the word sorry is “feeling distress, especially through sympathy with someone else's misfortune” (thanks for always coming in clutch, Google).
So, in other words, I feel sympathy for her pain, and though I want more than anything in the world to fix it, I can’t. So, I’m sorry for her rough times and her emotional distress, and because she’s one of my best friends, I feel distressed as well, because I hate seeing her anything but happy. What I’m trying to say is, in the long run, saying sorry isn’t the end of the world, nor does it have to be this huge thing.
Your car broke down? Man, that sucks, I’m sorry. You failed your last exam? I’m sorry, but don’t worry, you’ll do better next time. It’s my way of showing someone that I care, that I sympathize with their struggle and that I’m here for them, no matter how big or how small their issue may be. Each apology I have is just as heartfelt and sincere as the next, whether it’s my second time or tenth time saying it that day. No one is perfect and we all have flaws, but honestly, if one of my flaws is saying sorry too much, well, that really is one thing I’m not very sorry about.
