Today the elevator door opened on my floor and the person in it walked out. They soon realized it wasn’t the lobby and walked back into the elevator. As I walked into the elevator, I then responded with “sorry”. I then stood there thinking, “why did I even just say that when there was nothing to be sorry about?”
Over time, I’ve realized I just say sorry whenever something goes wrong. Even if I clearly know at that moment it is not my fault, I still apologize. Thinking back to my childhood, no one ever specifically told me to do this, it was just what I always expected of myself. I never wanted to hurt anyone else’s feelings or offend them in any way. But I don’t think this is something that only I have grown up doing. When girls are growing up they are raised to value empathy more than men. They are told to not be loud, rude, or obnoxious by any means. Women are taught to consider others’ feelings so much from such a young age. This is what makes women grow up and over apologize. They want to make things right by cushioning their actions with an apologizing, even if what they did wasn’t even wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, it is important to have empathy. It is important to tell people when you are truly sorry for something in the right moments. But it comes to a point when you are saying sorry for nothing that it changes the meaning. When sorry is used as a filler word, it’s not a true apology anymore. It just represents always trying to fix something even if it isn’t your fault. It loses its true meaning because you don’t really mean it.
As I go through my everyday life now, I try to really focus on when and why I say sorry. I’m mainly trying to improve on not apologizing for every small thing I do. It is definitely difficult to change since it is what I have grown up doing. But I know that by changing my language, I will be able to say sorry in the future only when I truly mean it. By reducing the amount of times sorry is unnecessarily said, it can become something that is only used during a meaningful moment.