I went to work last week and I kept apologizing. The word “sorry” unnecessarily spewed from my lips more times than I could remember. It’s concrete reasons why I do not exactly know. My coworker kept insisting that I stop apologizing. “Why do you keep saying sorry so much?” she’d ask. While I incessantly apologized throughout the night I was always met with some sort of counter. It really got me thinking. I had not realized how much I had said the word “sorry” until I was repeatedly confronted with it. But why was I apologizing so much? Why did I continuously spew expressions of regret for situations that were not necessary? Has the meaning of the word “sorry” become inflated because of how much I use it?Â
As I’m writing this I look back on my day and think about the number of times I apologized. The number is so excessive it almost feels like a part of me—a girl who is apologizing for my existence. Which isn’t to say that I have not, do not, and will not experience situations in which I feel the genuine need to apologize. However, I have found that the instances I have said sorry come from feeling badly about taking up space, making jokes, or saying something over and over again as it has become a part of my jargon.Â
What I’ve found to be the worst about this situation is that I am not the only one who over-apologizes. Women apologize every single day for just taking up space. We have been conditioned to shrink ourselves (figuratively and literally) and quiet our voices. We are expected to take things as they are because wanting change would be asking for too much. I sit in my lectures and I hear the girls in my class say “I’m sorry” before they even ask a question–because we should be apologizing for needing clarification in the classes that we pay for? While I sit here and write this, I recognize my hypocrisy in the sense that I too have fallen victim to always being sorry. It’s true that I say sorry too much, and I can see so many women around me doing the same realizing that this is not okay.Â
So why am I even writing this? To emphasize the fact that a lot of us are incognizant of how much we say sorry. That oftentimes our apologizing is rooted in things beyond just feeling guilty or ashamed about a mistake we made, because a lot of the times we are saying sorry for things we don’t need to be sorry for. I’m leaving with this: take time and see if you notice how much you apologize and what you apologize for. I can guarantee that there are many people who don’t even realize how much they say sorry until it is pointed out to them (I say this because I am one of these people). If you notice a pattern—instances where apologies are said and are not necessary or are being said too much—try and break it. It’s not fun to constantly feel bad about things and more importantly it is not fun to feel as though you cannot exist without feeling like a liability. Women are allowed to take up space, make silly jokes, ask questions and exist! While our over-apologizing is not directly our fault, let’s take the initiative to recognize we don’t have to be so small. Let’s stop apologizing so much.Â