Was out walking the dogs the other day in the green space behind the shop when a neighbor, Ana by name, flagged me down. I thought, “uh-oh,” because the last time we had spoken, a year or two previously, she had been really unpleasant. She accused me of letting my dogs poop in the un-maintained area at the far back of their property, well beyond the fence and right next to the brush piles along the brook. I said, truthfully, No, we don’t cut through your property any more. Ever since your husband, the grump, made a scene a while back. And furthermore, lots of folks use this space to walk their dogs; I’m hardly the only one. So ease up already.
This failed to mollify, and she followed up by sealing the gate between our office park and the green space, which she had no authority to do.
It was an act of overt aggression well out of proportion to the alleged crime. It also really bugged me because up to that point we had been friendly, and had even done a little business. It left a lingering sour taste.
But life goes on. I pried the gate open and went on with it. And we successfully avoided each other for many months. Until that morning.
After some initial concern, I noticed that she seemed conciliatory. She also obviously wanted to get something off her chest.
“I want to apologize for my previous behavior,” she said. She had been in a mood, was upset about something else, didn’t know what came over her, that sort of thing. What crystallized it, though, was that she had recently noticed lots of folks from the ‘hood using the space to walk their dogs. So I had been right all along. And she had been out of line.
And just like that, all the previous unpleasantness simply vanished. A wave of gratitude washed over me. It made my day, maybe my whole week.
Lesson learned: There is real power in a sincere apology. Not that it erases every sin. But it is a restorative thing, which nudges the Universe back toward the proper balance.
It takes maturity to be able to say “I’m sorry” and mean it. And it’s a trait we should all work to cultivate.
