On Remorse: Just Say You're Sorry

For me, remorse is a very important emotion. Doctors across America encounter Huge problems because they are unable to apologize and accept responsibility for their mistakes. In fact, admitting guilt, showing remorse, and explaining their mistakes have managed to bring down new claims of malpractice against doctors by 36%. Countless other claims are settled for less money. People need to see your remorse to let go of their anger. To me, this is fairly basic common sense. When you make a mistake, large or small, you apologize, show remorse, and are generally forgiven. Sometimes if the mistake is larger, forgiveness may take longer to come, but admitting your mistake and apologizing goes a long way towards resolving a conflict.

My honey has a very very hard time admitting guilt and showing remorse. He can usually squeeze out an "I'm sorry" but it's most often followed by an explanation of why the mistake was really your fault, not his. Example: He deleted all the data (sim card data, contacts, applications, pictures, etc) from a friends new iPhone. It was a complete accident, one he could not have foreseen, but nonetheless it happened. My reaction would be OMG I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for it to happen, is there anything I can do to help, again I'm SO sorry. He apologized after hemming and hawing and guiltily looking up ways to help online, but ended with well it's your fault you don't have a back up. This TOTALLY rubs me the wrong way. When you fuck up, accident or not, you nut up, apologize, and admit you're wrong. I know this is difficult and no one likes to feel guilty but really, this should be a no brainer. I feel like if this guy hit someone with his car, he would apologize and then explain how it's really not his fault because they should have jumped out of the way. Okay, probably not, but you get the point. I know we all show guilt differently, but I just wish his guilt looked a little more... you know, guilty.

When our children make mistakes we tell them it's okay, don't feel bad, you didn't mean it, etc etc. As cruel as this sounds, I feel like "feeling bad" is something you need to experience when you screw up. When you make a mistake, intentional or not, you should feel badly and understand how your mistakes make others feel. A healthy sense of responsibility and culpability make people more aware of their actions and more sensitive to the impact of those actions on others. Obviously you don't want to take the guilt factor too far, but you should understand that it is your actions that have caused this problem so you can work better to prevent a future problem.

Personal integrity, responsibility, and culpability are very important to me. I hate being wrong as much as the next stubborn pig-headed person does, but when I screw up I admit it. Little things like buying the wrong milk at the grocery store incur a polite apology, if it was important it's sometimes accompanied by a little guilt, and next time you remember the right variety. But for big things like having to track down 100 contacts and enter them by hand, re-download tons of applications and having to set up your entire phone from scratch deserve a pretty BIG expression of remorse and a heartfelt I'M SORRY.