Today I'm going to tell you about something that I am not necessarily good at. I have said I'm sorry so many times in my life it is ridiculous. The problem I ran into was being sorry wasn't good enough. Now I can see that as being very true, in fact I can think of many times I was saying I was sorry based on an excuse, "I'm sorry I can't help myself..." etc.
This is the problem for so many of us, we say that we are sorry, but either we aren't sure about what to be sorry for or we aren't really sorry. If you want to live a great life it is important to know how to apologize to those you love. It isn't about getting all emotional about it, it is about being humble and knowing what you are saying.
The steps I try to take to an apology start with me figuring out exactly what I'm apologizing for. When doing this you have to realize your own actions, not just the circumstances. You have a choice in how you behave towards another person, and it really is that simple. When you hurt another person you typically are not taking their feelings into consideration. That is easy to do when you get angry or frustrated. Know what it is, if you said something that you shouldn't have then admit it, be prepared to admit that you were wrong.
The next thing you have to do is ask the other party to forgive you. This can be tough. When you do this, you will find that you are laying all the action from that point on to the other person. This takes a great deal of humility and bravery, they may not make the choice to forgive you. The words 'I'm sorry' by themselves carry no weight, they are a knee jerk response. If you never actually say those two words you'll be so much better off. Quit copping out and just do it.
Now here is the most important step, when and if the other party does forgive you, you have to NOT repeat the action that led to the apology in the first place, if you are truly apologizing, then you have to change your behavior. The only person who can change you is you. There is no motivation out there bigger than possibly loosing someone or something you love because you wouldn't change.
Sometimes we don't know that something said or something we do will hurt another person, but that is why we have to apologize the right way and then use it as a learning experience. If you don't know what it is like to have the heart ripped out of your chest then you will never understand what you might have done to the other party. When you do go through it, you will want someone to truly ask you to forgive them.
Next time I'm talking about forgiveness, so stay tuned for part two.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Pick Your Battles
Too often times you find yourself fighting, whether that be against your freinds, family, your significant other whoever. These fights cause a lot of stress in our lives, and I know that many times they really aren't worth it. I've seen break ups happen over the silliest things, I've seen families destroyed over it. Fights can ruin days, weeks and lives.
When you approach one of these situations you always have the oppertunity to make a choice, I can't sit here and tell you that you can always avoid it, but it is the reactions that you have during the beginning of the fight that depends on the level of drama that is created by it.
Now I hate drama, but it isn't that I haven't had my fair share of it. I don't know how many times I heard my ex-wife say "whatever" and that was always a key word that seemed to turn it on like donkey kong. It was a cop out word, to my ears it almost sounded like "bite me, your not worth comprimising with." That was my issue. The thing that has taken me so long to understand was that at times she was picking not to fight the battle with me. It isn't unlike me saying "Fine".
In fact the word "fine" created a nasty fight between me and my girlfriend this last friday. The fight wasn't worth it, strangely enough about halfway through she asked me why I was fighting her because by tomorrow it wouldn't really matter to me anyway and what was the purpose of hurting her in the process. She was right, I need to think out a little better what my battles that are worth fighting for.
When you love someone sometimes you want them to follow your "advice" sometimes you watch them do things that make you cringe because they aren't doing it the way that may be best, at least in your mind. The reality is we are all people and we have all had diffent experinces in life that creates us as who we are. When we love someone we need to take the time to walk in their shoes. We need to realize what is really worth it, and there is very little in this world that is worth escalating a conversation to a full blown screaming match.
I know that it seems hard to image but when you are living a great life then you won't spend nearly as long fighting with anyone. The fight will be minimized to what is really worth it. You cannot allow someone else to rule your emotions. There will be fights and disagreements in every relationship, but some of them just aren't worth fighting. Everyone comes with baggage, it is a fact, all of us are tainted in some way. We have to choose how we take the pressure of life, we have to agree or disagree, but we don't have to take it to the level of a relationship ending arguement over something that "really won't matter later". I try to use this as a measuring stick when I decide to fight, is it worth running this person out of my life over?
I know that our pride and our tempers have the ability to get in the way of rational thinking, when that happens you better know how to apologize if the answer to the above question was no.
When you approach one of these situations you always have the oppertunity to make a choice, I can't sit here and tell you that you can always avoid it, but it is the reactions that you have during the beginning of the fight that depends on the level of drama that is created by it.
Now I hate drama, but it isn't that I haven't had my fair share of it. I don't know how many times I heard my ex-wife say "whatever" and that was always a key word that seemed to turn it on like donkey kong. It was a cop out word, to my ears it almost sounded like "bite me, your not worth comprimising with." That was my issue. The thing that has taken me so long to understand was that at times she was picking not to fight the battle with me. It isn't unlike me saying "Fine".
In fact the word "fine" created a nasty fight between me and my girlfriend this last friday. The fight wasn't worth it, strangely enough about halfway through she asked me why I was fighting her because by tomorrow it wouldn't really matter to me anyway and what was the purpose of hurting her in the process. She was right, I need to think out a little better what my battles that are worth fighting for.
When you love someone sometimes you want them to follow your "advice" sometimes you watch them do things that make you cringe because they aren't doing it the way that may be best, at least in your mind. The reality is we are all people and we have all had diffent experinces in life that creates us as who we are. When we love someone we need to take the time to walk in their shoes. We need to realize what is really worth it, and there is very little in this world that is worth escalating a conversation to a full blown screaming match.
I know that it seems hard to image but when you are living a great life then you won't spend nearly as long fighting with anyone. The fight will be minimized to what is really worth it. You cannot allow someone else to rule your emotions. There will be fights and disagreements in every relationship, but some of them just aren't worth fighting. Everyone comes with baggage, it is a fact, all of us are tainted in some way. We have to choose how we take the pressure of life, we have to agree or disagree, but we don't have to take it to the level of a relationship ending arguement over something that "really won't matter later". I try to use this as a measuring stick when I decide to fight, is it worth running this person out of my life over?
I know that our pride and our tempers have the ability to get in the way of rational thinking, when that happens you better know how to apologize if the answer to the above question was no.
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