I’m late. Two days late, to be exact.
I am sorry.
“Don’t worry about it”, you might think or, “what’s he even talking about?” Well, some time ago, I set a goal with myself to post every Sunday evening or, at the latest, Monday morning. So, I’m late.
The truth is, I didn’t have anything this past Sunday. I sat down in front of this keyboard only to type a few generic sentences, stare blankly, then delete. Type something different, stare again, then delete. After north of about an hour of that, in the absence of a more inspiring way to put it, I gave up. I had nothing.
Today. Today, I have something. Something as a result of having nothing. I reflected on missing my self-imposed Sunday night due date. I didn’t feel good about it. At the least, I felt that I’d let myself down. At the most, with a conscientiousness toward modesty, perhaps I’d let someone else down. Someone, anyone, who’d become familiar with that Sunday night due date. Maybe? There’s a chance?
What happened between Sunday and this very moment was that I’d thought about what it meant to be sorry; to be apologetic.
Granted, nothing egregious or harmful came of my Sunday night writer’s block, the impact of it, or lack thereof, didn’t take away from the principles of reconciliation that I thought about.
Although, I didn’t necessarily want to make it academic, resolution, it seemed, came in steps. I thought about my walk through this.
The first step was simply awareness. Awareness translates into a lot of different complexions. In my case, I didn’t live up to the goal I’d set for myself with respect to writing. With that, came some disappointment of self and the awareness that perhaps my actions affected someone else. The foundation of this is that when we don’t meet the truth in our Heart, we hurt people. And, we hurt ourselves. Awareness of that absence of truth, however big or small, is the basis of reconciliation.
Next was action. It was accepting the responsibility to take action upon my awareness. Nine times out of nine, that means communication. That means voicing the absence of the truth. It’s the acknowledgement, whether to someone else or yourself, of your awareness. It’s taking on that responsibility of where you didn’t live that truth. It’s knowing your part in what’s happened. That doesn’t mean full responsibility is yours for whatever the full spectrum of the situation entails, but it means taking your rightful share. Honestly. Authentically. Sincerely.
Finally, accountability. Using my quite harmless example; I can offer my apology, I can take action with my responsibility, but if you return here next Sunday evening or Monday morning and nothing new is waiting, I’m not accountable. I’ve compromised my trustworthiness. It’s on me to rebuild that trust through accountability; to support what I’m making amends for. In more life impacting contexts, accountability is represented by consistent changed behaviour. Or, taking steps toward a changed behaviour. It’s the follow through. Awareness and action are integral to the process of reconciliation but trust is an uncompromising tenet in human connection.
It didn’t need to be any more complicated than this. There can be a lot of challenge in those steps, but there’s no complexity in them. The thing with living out the truth in your Heart is that it’s not complex. It’s never meant to be. To have the utmost faith in that truth is what carries you through to it. It’s what creates awareness, it’s what dissolves the fear of taking action and it’s what motivates the desire for accountability.
My dad used to say, “it’s fine that you’re sorry, just don’t do it, again.” Needs a little bit of fine tuning, but he might have had something there.
Be Love.
