Ever watched as your deed; in which you obviously misjudged the outcome of the situation, gets someone curling back in anguish and pain? At times you just stand there, with a half-frozen stare, gaping at them as stark-naked terror paralyses all your senses; bewildered and traumatized, but above all, clueless as to what to do. You wish you could give them a hug, a kiss, a shoulder to cry on, or maybe a tissue so they can wipe away theirs tears that are scuttling down their desiccated, chapped cheeks.
At this moment, blood is rushing through your veins and your heart is beating at a pace so fast it feels like a thousand horses are galloping down a hill; thick sweat forming across your forehead. Your mind becomes blank. Their pain and your pain become one and the same thing. The only difference is that theirs is real and yours is passed on in the form of feelings acquired from what you see. ‘I’m sorry.’ The only words that manage to wriggle through and escape your arid gullet crevices and pharynx cavities, all the way out of your mouth.
Many a times we have abused the word ‘sorry’. We have used it as a shield so many times it is slowly but surely losing its meaning. Why is it so? Do we never have a good explanation for why things went wrong, or why we did what we didn’t intend to do?
We have all done it. Remember the days when you played with other kids in your neighbourhood. It was all innocent, simply driven by the powerful force of early years, when the world was full of nothing but innocence. It was all bliss in your eyes; filled with laughter and play sessions that were forever worry-free, until someone gets hurt, then the altitude of ‘fun’ comes crushing down like a ball of fire, burning all in its way.
It would simply spoil the moment, because, as kids, another kid’s pain was everyone’s pain. At times other kids would join in, in the crying, and it becomes one long, heartfelt song, in which they were the only ones who knew the words to it. Although others would not be directly affected by the cause of pain, they all shared a mutual understanding, and the love shared amongst them was real, and everyone will say, 'I'm sorry'.
Today, the word 'sorry' is thrown around like its nothing. It has become a weapon of mass destruction in many households. Haven’t we seen it in the relationships around us, where one partner becomes a scapegoat, because of another’s diabolic conduct? There is no one who has a valid reason for his or her own mishaps anymore. Even if they did, probably they prioritise their own pride at the expense of trust and honesty from their significant other.
Think of the politicians. Haven’t they done the same? Policies have been put in place, theories and hypothesis have all been tried and tested, but surely we can never dismiss all of them and say they don’t work. Where is the problem then? Why do we find ourselves chasing the wind with nothing more than the words: ‘we are sorry’ in return. At times it’s like someone is always clutching on to it, down somewhere, ready to whip it out of their pockets and paste it across your forehead whenever you need to know why things have come out to be the way they are. We have a right to know, don’t we? We put them in the places they are in today, so why has the word ‘sorry’ become the biggest tool to evade our right to stand up to our own actions and taking responsibility for what we say we stand for? I am tired of using the words ‘I’m sorry.’, and on the other hand, I am tired of hearing them too.
Maybe the answer is simple. We are nothing more than being humans. At times it’s like people say sorry because they feel obliged to. They really don’t mean it, but they feel they can use it to clothe their actions and probably sweep everything under the mat.
Probably we are all clothed in culpability and a great amount of deficiency, which always reveal its ugly head every time we embark on different things. But we can never be all classified under the same banner of ‘we are not perfect beings’.
What if we tried, to whatever degree to live up to, at least, the highest level of precision? The world needs it, doesn’t it? We all need it, I should believe. We need to take responsibility, and face up to our inconsistencies.
Till next time folks, keep safe and share the love...
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