People make mistakes all the time. Not just bad people, or weak people. All people. Our mistakes are what make us human. And even when we don’t think that we’ve made a mistake, other people will often find errors in our ways. We human beings are walking offenders.
Here’s the real question: If we’ve done something that offends someone else—whether or not we feel we are to blame—should we apologize?
I believe that it almost always serves our highest good to apologize if we’ve hurt or offended someone else—even if we think the offended person’s anger is unjustified, or if we have a perfectly good excuse for what happened. Or if our intentions were all good.
Our happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of our social connections—our relationships with friends, family, partners, spouses, neighbors, colleagues—and so broken or fraying connections are usually worth repairing.
Often, the impact of our action is not what we intended. But here’s the thing: Impact matters much more than intention. Our happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of our social connections—our relationships with friends, family, partners, spouses, neighbors, colleagues—and so broken or fraying connections are usually worth…
