14 Comments
C4P23 – Better daughter
The funny thing about guilt is it sucks up blame like a sponge, even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense, and turns it into a weapon. I despise guilt. I find it one of the most useless emotions in the world. Actions taken out of guilt are rarely good in the long run. That’s one of the reason I dislike apologies. I’d rather people DO something different because they want to be BETTER, not apologize because they feel guilty, and then continue on without change.
How do you feel about apologies?
14 Comments
Like Fiona Apple says, “Please please please, no apologies. At best they buy you time until you next step out of line.”
Sometimes we all need to buy some time. And sometimes they are heartfelt and an indication of change to come. Time will tell in either case.
But man, I hope I don’t have any of my classic “betrayal” anxiety dreams after reading this.
I hope your dreams remained betrayal-less!! I’d feel awful if I meddled with your unconscious that way!
And you’re right, sometimes it IS important to buy time, and often they DO mean the future will be better. I guess that’s the importance of self-awareness. For what purpose is one REALLY saying sorry?
Agh, Naoime is my mother. I’ve been living with a MASTER of the Roman Catholic guilt trips for seventeen years. Thank God I’m in college now.
Anyway, yes, I understand exactly how this feels for Mizha. And it’s almost making me upset myself. Good job!
Well, I’ll put it this way: There’s a reason we both can relate to Mizha in this moment. Best of luck to BOTH of us! *hugs*
Indeed. *hugs*
I tell my daughter all the time to stop apologizing for her actions and just do better.
Apologies have their place…so long as they are meant and lessons are learned and efforts are made to improve the action behind whatever elicited the apology.
But for the most part, it is a knee jerk reaction to an action and the root isn’t ever changed.
Sounds like you are a good mom! I still have the terrible habit of apologizing for EVERYTHING, even though I hate apologies!! One of the things I’ve done to train myself out of the habit is to identify where “Thank you” would work better than “Sorry”. Instead of saying “I’m sorry that you had to listen to me complain about my day,” to change that to “Thank you for letting me vent, it really helped.”
“I’m sorry” has its place — but only if it’s used well!
In my opinion guilt and apologies don’t have to be about emotions. It could simply be a matter of intellectually acknowledging responsibility to oneself and to others, respectively. And the various unpleasant memories that get triggered every now and then are only there to remind me what to not ever do again. I mean, how else would I remember? Repetition is key.
As for feelings and emotions in general, I learned to distrust mine. My emotions can play in the pen all they want, but they don’t get to touch the important buttons that make things happen. I suppose I live a stunted existence, but everyone can’t be a winner.
I can see your point on the reminder. I guess most of my guilt reminders are for things so inconsequential that only I recall them, or for things that are unreasonable to feel guilty about. Perhaps the issue is my Guilt-o-meter is improperly calibrated.
Not everybody feels emotion the same way. If something works for you, it works! Personally, I think it’s more important to be open to change, than to force change without cause. That way, if something stops working, you don’t have to fight yourself as much to adapt.
Probably the thing I hate most about religion is that you can apologize to someone you didn’t hurt and be forgiven. I am very much a “admit you were wrong and try to make up for it” person. (I’m also conflict-averse, so any form of making up for it will probably do because I just want to be done worrying about it.)
See? Now you see what’s underneath all the bubbles. Mizha’s got a lot on her mind.
You point out something that I think is important to differentiate — Apologies and admitting fault are often NOT the same thing! I guess what I dislike the most is the casual “sorry.” The: “I’m sorry that you feel bad, even if I didn’t do anything wrong.” Or just “I’m habitually trained to apologize for things that I have no control over, thus making the apology pointless.”
I’d much rather have a “Hey, I didn’t intend XYZ that way, but I can understand how it hurt your feelings. What can we do to make it better next time?”
I hate it when famous people apologize by saying, “I regret the hurt my remarks caused” or something like that instead of, “What I said was wrong, and I’m sorry.”
Funk! I’ve just discovered the comic, I read through the archive, and this is where it ends for now. Wow. Powerful stuff! I’ll be following the comic with interest!
Awesome! I’m so glad to have you here! LeyLines is my pride and joy. It’ll be here for you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so hopefully all the cliffhangers I’m notorious for won’t sting TOO bad!
And thank you so much for the comment! Chatting with readers is one of my favorite parts of being a webcomic creator!
Out of curiosity, what lead you here? Is there a fellow creator I can thank for a kind link?