What is an apology really and when should we offer one? Apology-- a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure
In coaching, we talk a lot about personal responsibility and how we create our own experiences in life through our choices. We speak often of personal integrity, to thine own self be true. This is different than moral or ethical integrity. We learn about being a person who is "inner-referring" rather than relying on other people to define the kind of person we are. From this perspective, when is it appropriate to offer an apology and how should it be expressed to qualify as such?
Toxic emotions such as shame often trigger an apology, and shame is a feeling of guilt because of something we have done or for a characteristic we have. Feeling sorry or feeling regret or a sense of penitence for our actions is usually present within an apology.
For one to feel apologetic to another person or community, they must share the same system of values. From a place of shared values or shared morality, it can be determined when one has failed. Then a judgement can be made regarding the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad. This judgment is a criticism or condemnation of another from a position of assumed moral superiority.
But what if we find ourselves living within a system of values that we have not consciously chosen and do not fully understand or perhaps, even agree with? When we act outside of this system, are we compelled to apologize for our failure? Only if we have failed to act within our own integrity.
And there is an important distinction to be made here: feeling sorry is not being sorry. Using bad judgement does not make us bad. The failure to fulfill an obligation does not make a person a failure. Knowing this is the starting place for recognizing what our own value system is, our own person integrity.
I believe that an apology is appropriate when we have violated our own integrity or the integrity and morality of a value system we have agreed to embrace.
I believe that it is inappropriate to demand an apology from someone. We cannot ever demand or command the emotions of another. An apology offered by demand would be insincere at its best and self-serving at its worst. And I think that this is the sphere of the well-known concept of "public apology." Public apologies are demanded and offered as a way of reassuring ourselves that our public figures share our morals, that we are all on the same moral page, which if you watch the news, of course, we are not.
The expression of an apology should be directed to those whom were harmed by our lack of integrity and poor choices. Sometimes the only person we really owe an apology to is ourselves, a clear, specific, sincere acknowledged regret. It is without judgement, internal or external, and without blame, shame or resentment. It serves no selfish purpose beyond personal accountability.
The landscape of public figures is littered with forced, false or fake apologies. But, what is it they are really apologizing for? Their actions or for getting caught being who they really are, knowing that the public is not interested in who the public figure really is. The public demands that the public figure be just that, a figure not much unlike an action figure that we manipulate for our amusement. There is one crucial difference though. The public figure usually volunteers for this job and has agreed to play by the same value system. The action figure did not.
Being true to ourselves means to stop lying to ourselves about who and what we really are and it means to stop making ourselves wrong because we fail to measure up to someone else's expectations. We get to decide our own value. That's the power of personal responsibility and for that, never apologize.