Last week I wrote a blog post called Be Kind in which I talked about how I was trying to improve myself by being kinder and more helpful to strangers. This week's task therefore sounds a little at odds with that idea.
I am going to stop apologising.
I am going to stop apologising.
Now, when I say I’m going to stop
apologising, I don’t mean for the times when I have actually done something
wrong or stepped on someone on the bus.
I’m talking about the dozens of times that I say sorry every week,
simply for existing or having an opinion.
The funny thing is, this behaviour was so ingrained that I did not
realise that I was even doing it.
I read an article the other day which
talked about how many times a day people say they are sorry, particularly women, when there is no need to do so. So I thought that I would run an experiment and see when and why I was saying it.
The most noticeable and numerous amount of times I said sorry over the past week, was when I was coming into a new conversation with somebody. My very first word when I started to speak was sorry. Using "I'm sorry" at your starting point for sentence is a little bit odd when you actually analyse it.
You knock on a door, you hear "come in" and then you walk in and say "I'm sorry". For what? Existing?
You are in an interesting conversation or a debate; you start your point with "I'm sorry but". I'm sorry I have an opinion? I'm sorry I am expressing my thoughts?
What am I apologising for?
The second noticeable time I apologised this week, actually shocked me when I realised what I was doing. Twice this week when walking down a corridor that only had room for one person, I have seen someone at the other end, both men on these occasions, and immediately said "Oh sorry!!!" and immediately acceded to their alleged right to the corridor space. This was not asked for, it was assumed behaviour that I did not even know I was carrying out until my experiment this week.
This was not being polite. This wasn't the atypical British way of "You go first" "No you" "No I insist". This was acceding to someone else who in that moment my brain was telling me that they were more worthy than I to be in control of the space.
Why do I think that I am not worthy?
So that is my new goal for the week. To stop unnecessarily apologising. To realise that I am allowed to speak under my own merit. That it is allowed. That I am allowed to exist in the area that I am in.
I have no problem vocalising my thoughts online, so it is time that my offline life matched my online life. Being brave enough to own that moment as my own, that space, It is a reaffirmation that I am enough.
