Showing posts with label abused words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abused words. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2009

Sorry Is Just Another Word

Sorry is one of the overused and most abused words. It has become so ordinary that it gets to the ranks of “you know” or “whatever” or “like.” I don’t have anything against these. But it’s, like, you know…it has lost its meaning already or whatever.

We spill a coffee over someone and we say sorry. We don’t get what another person says and we say “I’m sorry?” Often, we choose to let go of words before even thinking about it and hurt other people because we can always resort to saying sorry anyway. People feel more liberty in being unkind or insensitive because they are free to dig in to the unlimited resource of sorry.

Sorry is a feeling of sorrow, regret or grief. It's not something that we take advantage of and excuse our shortcomings with. It's not something that's supposed to come out just to get things over with. I was reminded by someone that sorry is not the end of the discussion, but most of the time, it's where the real talk begins.

Sorry with no heart, no sincerity, is just another word. We cannot say we're sorry and at the same time justify what we do something wrong. We cannot say sorry and have a list of reasons that rationalizes our actions. When we say we're sorry, we simply are.