This American Life - Apology

How hard is it to just say "I'm sorry"?

I listened a recording episode of This American Life, which is titled Apology. This is an excerpt from the website:   "It's rare that a successful apology happens. One where you apologize to someone, not for selfish reasons, but because you're really sorry and you want them to know that, and when the person you're apologizing to really hears what you're saying."

Like "Mrs. Apology" Marissa Bridge had said in the clip, the apology line was a place for people to confess - not just about what the confessors had done wrong, but also to talk about their feelings.  An apology serves as a Way of Knowing as an apology means more than just "I'm sorry"; those words contain emotions such as sorrow, sympathy, guilt, and regret, which differ depending on the reasons why the person apologizes. When a person says sorry, we can infer what kind of emotion the person is experiencing through the person's emotional tone.

All three of the acts in the recording show that an apology isn't easy to say. The brother who repeated "Forgive me." to the parrot, the people calling into The Apology Line, and the doctors who did not say sorry due to their fear of going to court. This shows that there are many in this world who are afraid to apologize to whom they really want to apologize to. As a result, when an apology is not said, those who are meant to receive the apology will never know that the person who wants to apologize is feeling sorry.

I think an apology is response of physical words said by a person to express the person's feelings and in turn the one who listens to the apology will know how the person who apologized was feeling. As a result, I think emotion as a Way of Knowing is quite limited, as I can only know my emotions, what I am feeling at the moment. However, I cannot use emotion to know what others are thinking (at least I can't think of one right now) unless they express their emotions through words (speaking or writing) or actions (a hug shows love). In other words, emotion can be used as a Way of Knowing to know oneself, but not other people.

In the stories of this episode Apology imply knowledge issues such as the genuineness of the apology. The victim in Act III was upset because no one apologized to acknowledge the fact her brother died and it was an  awful thing her brother died. On the other hand, she also said that nowadays people from healthcare are trained to say, "I'm very sorry for your loss." However, the apology is not true because they are just taught to say that; their apology wouldn't be real anymore, but just a programmed response.

When I was young, I was taught to apologize when I did something wrong, and I believe that most of the people are taught that too. And of course, when I do something such as accidentally bump into someone, causing whatever that the person is holding to fall on the ground and I blurt out "I'm sorry." I blurt the words about because apologizing is an involuntary action, not because I really feel sorry.

I sometimes feel more upset when I feel that someone's apology is not real. For example, there are times when my brother would say sorry to be just because my mum told him to. In this case, I would rather him not apologize because he doesn't even feel sorry when he apologizes. And if I accepted his apology, he would feel better or relieved because he had said sorry but I would still feel bad because I knew that he was just forced to apologize. I wouldn't accept a person's apology if the person was not feeling sorry because the apology wasn't sincere and I wouldn't want to let the person off the hook by just saying two meaningless words.

Apologizing is a way of expressing our emotions, but is it relevant to emotion as a Way of Knowing? I'm not really sure. I think this episode Apology of This American Life makes me feel that emotion has to be expressed in certain ways to be communicated among people, or else it can only serve as a Way of Knowing to understand ourself more.

To me, apologizing is difficult, because of pride and it's hard to admit what I have done wrong. There were times when I wanted say sorry to certain people, but I just couldn't bring myself to say so. As time passed by, I forgot why I wanted to say sorry in the past, and in the end, I even forgot about the whole incident. It's too late for me to apologize, so right now I have to learn to put down my pride and say sorry whenever I do something wrong. I hope I won't be late in the future.

Last but not least, this is a song which lyrics is written by a singer to apologize to his ex-girlfriend for hurting her - Sorry That I Loved You


Source of image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/227/514443215_08f6f18b88.jpg