Don’t owe anyone an apology.

When you know you hurt someone, apologize.
When you think someone deserves to hear you say, ‘you are sorry!”,  say it.
When you owe someone an apology, give it. Don’t owe it. Just give it.

I recently had a very unfortunate situation. I can get very emotive when it comes to trust and betrayal. Be it joy, love, anger, or disapproval, I feel and express it in excess.
The said ‘incident’ affected me deeply. Being the sentimentally delicate person I am, it was quite painful to go through. The deceit was too much to handle.
It made me feel foolish, especially given how much I trusted them.

I am only human. I felt rage, and anger.
But I decided to hold off.

“To err is human.
Who is perfect? We are all imperfect.
I make mistakes. You make mistakes. We all make mistakes.
So they slipped. They made a poor judgement.  Things went out of control. Given a chance, they will realize their mistake.” This is what I told myself.

I decided to not bring it up until they did. I waited out for that person to realize what they had done, and feel sorry about it.

I wait, and I wait, and there was no apology. No sign of remorse. The worst part of this whole experience was witnessing them behave like nothing ever happened. They failed to acknowledge the whole thing. They had taken my silence as a sign that it was okay, or I did not mind, and decided to pretend that such a thing never existed.

If there is one thing I cannot do, it is to coverup how I truly feel. Like I said, I express it way too much when I feel an emotion. You can picture hot lava, bubbling in a live volcano. That’s exactly how I felt every time they carried on like there was no elephant in the room.

The other day, that person casually initiated a conversation (electronically, of course). I could not keep the ‘lava’ in anymore. I burst out. I don’t know what the right word is, to explain how I felt that very minute. You would know the feeling if you ever were in my shoe.

Now I tell them, “Please stop it. How are you able to act like nothing happened? I cannot pretend like it’s all okay.”

At least by now, you would expect them to rise up to the situation, and own up to their mistakes.
After all the deceiving and hurting, the least they can do is be honest about it. Right?

“What are you talking about?” .. is what they said.

Do you not know what I am talking about?.. Seriously? You can sink to a much lower level than I thought you could… I said to myself.

How was I supposed to respond to that?
Was I to say (type) in my own words everything I went through, to give them a gentle reminder of ‘what I was talking about’?

I was so pissed and very close to losing it, but in an effort to stick to the point, I slightly expressed how immature that reaction was, and then hinted about what I was referring to.

Even after that, all they had to say was, something that almost sums up to ‘they were in no way responsible’, ‘it wasn’t their fault’ and ‘it was all situational’.

Really?

This led up to one whole argument, and in all of that, there was no trace of a certain five letter word that starts with S and ends in Y. Not once. No surprise there!
And, it goes without saying how this could have ended. The very old-fashioned way of them leaving me hanging in the middle of a conversation, and no further contact.

The sad truth is that, most of the time this is how people react to confrontation. ‘Ignore the person, stop contact with them, and convince yourself that such a thing never happened’. I, honestly, wonder if that really can give you closure.

You did something you are not proud of. Do you think, pretending that it was not your fault, will bring you the honor you already lost? Do not seek refuge from Denial. Denial takes you nowhere. Running away and pretending that you are a person you are not, makes it no better for you, nor the others.

Whether or not it was your intention, when you hurt someone, you hurt someone. Period.
When you betray the trust of someone, you betray it.
By simply not acknowledging it, you cannot erase it. Putting it in a box and stuffing it in a dark corner will serve no purpose other than being a constant reminder that the box exists. It will be one big bag of guilt you will carry with you forever.

Well, let’s be honest. In all fairness, even if you are ready to carry that guilt with you and live forever. What about me? What did I do to deserve this treatment?

If seeing yourself as a person who did such a terrible thing, is so hard for you; you – who consciously made the decision to do it;
Imagine how hard it must be for me; me – who went through it.
If you don’t think you deserve to be held responsible for your own actions.
You think I deserved to go through the deceit?

If you want to argue that you had your ‘reasons’. Well, fair enough. There is nothing wrong in loving yourself  and doing anything to get what you want. We all deserve the right to pick our priorities. But not at the cost of causing misery to someone else. That, right there, is a conscious decision to voluntarily hurt someone.

Do not tell me you did not know that it could hurt someone. As much as you try to convince yourself otherwise, you, at some level, are always aware of the consequences to your actions. You conscience is constantly crying out loud. You choose to ignore that voice in your head. You choose to mute that voice and pursue your desire.

So, you made a mistake. So you slipped. Say you slipped. Say it out loud. Say it to the person you hurt.

It was a low point in your life. But, you do not have to dwell there. You can stand tall again.
You do not have to be the person who made a mistake.  You can be the person who learned from their mistakes.
You do not have to be the person who is ashamed of what they did. You can be that person who stepped up and fixed the situation.

Wise aren’t those who never make mistakes. Wise are those who learn from their mistakes.
There is an opportunity to learn, every time you make a mistake.
There is an opportunity to grow, every time you take responsibility for your actions.
There is an opportunity to become a better person, every time you change.
After all, experience is the mother of wisdom.

It is okay to let your guard down and own up to your mistakes. The only right way to handle a mistake is to right the wrong. Salvage the damage.
Say you are sorry, and mean it.
This way, you and ‘the person’, can both move on.

Once again, Don’t owe anyone an apology!

– Anu Shasti

We often make ‘people’ an existence of our impression on them. We develop a preconceived notion about someone, and judge them on that basis. We start judging people as early as when we meet them for the first time, by their appearance. We, then, base our judgements on the observation we make of their behavior. Remember, you only got to see a very small portion of who they are. It is too soon to tell. There is no need to feel so sure about knowing that person ‘in and out’ based on that very little knowledge.

The fact is that, it takes forever to understand and know a person completely. Ask my married friends how their better halves can surprise them even after spending what seems like forever together.

Have you heard someone go, “Oh I know her, she is kind of like ‘that’!”? kind of like what? You hardly spent half an hour around her at a birthday party of a mutual friend. She was in the living room and you were in the kitchen the whole time. You guys were practically 20 feet away from each other. How could you have possibly figured out “she was kind of like that”?

Okay, let’s say, you saw her again, this time you both were in the same room. Great! Did you talk to her? Oh yes! You said ‘Hi!’… Well, and also ‘Bye, nice meeting you!’ in the end! Fantastic! Now, when are you publishing her biography!

All I am saying is, realize that, what you know is very trivial. Do not fill the blanks with your assumptions.  May be you are right. But, what if you are wrong? Just give them the benefit of doubt.

You got two options here:

A. If you care about the person, how about trying to know them, instead of assuming the worst? Stop assuming and take an actual step to know them if you really care.
B. If you really don’t care, why not leave them alone, and go about your business?

As much reason as there is to think what you think about someone, there may be much more reason for you to change that. I am all in for being imaginative, but let that not be of ‘who somebody is’. If you feel creative, create a painting, write a poem, cook a dish, create anything that doesn’t already exist. Do not make your own fictitious version of a real living person.

While this is a horrible thing to do to a stranger. There are people who do it to friends. In this case, may be they know about each other a little more than those two who met at a birthday party of a mutual friend. May be, these two shared their childhood together, they know each others’ families, and more. But, come a minor gap, come a slight misunderstanding, they put that black gown on and go up to the judge’s panel.

We all try to stamp our opinion about people as labels on their heads, and want to see them as an existence of our opinions , “Arrogant”, “Jealous”, “Flirt”, “Big-headed”, and what not.
In our day-to-day routine, we make so many assumptions. If only there was a way to clarify. Well there is a way to clarify.. It is called talking it out. It is called ‘letting your ego not stand in the way’.

So when they don’t pick your call, don’t immediately jump to a conclusion ‘they are ignoring you’.
When they did not make it to your son’s birthday party, don’t decide that they don’t care anymore.

I agree there may be a point to why we feel so. If our genuine concern is them not being there. We would do something about that, instead of trying to stick that judgmental label on their heads.

Most of the time, when we grumble about how someone chose to ignore us, we are simply trying to make that person look bad and ultimately feed our ego. The worst part about this is, calling yourself someone who cares about them.

Usually this is the kind of people who would have a problem about anything and everything you do or say.
Nothing is good enough for them.
They are not willing to correct the prejudiced opinion they have about you. They are keeping count of what you did that wasn’t good enough. Oh, sure the good things you did are memories long gone.

Let’s say there has been a slight gap in communication between you and your friend/relative/cousin/whoever. You decide to take a step and message them after a long time. Can you guess ‘that reply’ that can make you regret why you even messaged them in the first place?
“Oh wow! You still remember me?”, or “So you finally found time for me” (or something similar).

Oh, the reverse of this happens too. They can go out of their way to make you look bad. You and that person haven’t spoken in a long time. After all that time, they decide to message you. Only, they didn’t want to message you to talk to you. They wanted to show off that they cared and YOU did not.
Guess what they start the conversation with. “Are you still alive?”, and then go on to, “Why no message at all?”, “very busy to talk to us?”, and more.
Their way of implying ‘you’ made no contact, and ‘you’ didn’t want to be in touch. Oh I see that pointing finger behind that text. What a knack in passing that ball of blame. You know how you should respond when someone asks you “Are you still alive?”, “I am mad because you did not show up at my funeral.” Just because you initiate the conversation doesn’t mean you are the one that always makes the effort! Please keep looking, I am sure there are better ways to feel good about yourself.

First of all. If ‘we’ haven’t spoken in years, it means you didn’t contact me too. It takes two to have a conversation and it takes two to not have a conversation also. Why bring guilt into play? What good does blaming do?
My problem is not with the words, but the attitude. A friend who really cares may start a conversation with a message like that too. But that friend who really cares would not try to make it about me. That friend would not emphasize on the long gap, and whose responsibility it was. That friend would move on to the present moment.
However this person, who is compelled to make a case that you invested your efforts in building the gap, is going to tirelessly try to make you sound like the bad one. As much as you try to steer the conversation to a positive and friendly note, they wouldn’t tread down.

Isn’t the point about ‘keeping in touch’ rather than putting a pin on ‘who’ went out of touch? Does counting mistakes and assigning blame make a better conversation than catching up on what you have missed out on?

Whatever happened to the good old “Hey, how are you?”. Would it be so hard to just start a conversation and talk normally, be it a small or a long gap. Is it really important to establish ‘who’ let the gap form and how? What is the point in making someone feel guilty?

If you actually think about it, they aren’t guilty of anything. If not feeling obligated to talk to you as a morning ritual everyday is ‘wrong’ in your court of law. Well then my friend, you and I live in two different worlds. Don’t make yourself a bigger person by making someone look small. You aren’t fooling anyone but yourself.

– Anu Shasti