once i read a very interesting article that got me thinking. there are apologies that we really mean and there are apologies we just say not to hurt the person we are talking to. there were situations in my life where i didn't want to go to an agreed appointment with a friend. no specific reason but i didn't want to go so i called and cancelled the coffee date. i felt so bad for her so i said i'm sorry.
why do we have to apologize ourselves? why can't we just be honest and say i'm not motivated - let's meet another time? i just think that most of us don't want to hurt the other persons feelings. we say i'm sorry to ease the situation we're in. however, we forget that the person next to us might have looked through the whole situation. i mean, how often did that happen to me before? i knew exactly what was going on.
new research suggests that, at least socially, a rejection should not include an apology. in other words, saying you are sorry does not make the person being rejected feel any better. in fact, it might make the rejected person feel worse. after beeing rejected you say oh... no problem or that's okay and we say those things wihtout meaning it. so you fool yourself and you feel worse afterwards.
you can imagine, there are a lot of differences between me rejecting a friend for a coffee date, versus me firing someone. there is a different power dynamic. there are different consequences. at least we can try with the 'smaller' things in life and stop saying i'm sorry when we are not. i value honesty so much and i try to be a honest person and hope the person standing in front of me is honest too. let's start our day motivating ourselves to be a better person day by day.
take care...