I came across this site (JoeApology.com) that allows you to post an apology anonymously...The moment I saw it appear on my gmail RSS feed, I thought, "wow, what a cool idea" but then, right on the heels of that initial reaction came another, more true to my personality, one.
And that was, "what a cowardly and self-indulging way of apologizing".
An apology is not supposed to be easy or public or self-gratifying. That's not an apology, that's a show. An apology is something you offer to the person whom you're wronged, not something you post for the world to see and approve and pat you on the back for. That's not an apology, that's attention grabbing drama.
I'm not quite sure why it's irritating me as much as it does. Perhaps because I'm terrible at apologizing myself. Perhaps because it's so painful for me to know that I've wronged someone and should now apologize. Perhaps it's because I think that an apology should be heartfelt and personal and directed at making the person you're apologizing to feel better and not yourself. If you feel better having apologized, that's great but it's an added bonus. The goal of an apology is making amends to the other not to yourself.
Public apology is not an apology... it may be an acknowledgment of fault, it may be a covert way of saying that you know what you did was wrong, it may even be a way of reaching out to the person you've wronged, but whatever else it is, it's not an apology.
1 comment:
I'm sorry you feel that way.
err.......
Actually I agree. Apologizing requires the character to stand up (or even kneel, or crawl) and say what I did was wrong/bad/not enough/too much.
This is a spam apology. I would be offended to receive one.
J
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