Do you also think “Sorry” lost it’s relevance ?~

I am sorry, We are sorry, Sorry Bol diya toh ! etc !

So the other day my two boys fought, younger said ” You are Mentally ill” to the elder one so nonchalantly… Just as a matter of fact ! I was in kitchen and my head blew with stronger force than the pressure cooker itself ! I run so much behind being polite, language etc and where did this come from in my kids (I sometimes forget they have another set of gens running in them too, How convenient is that ! )

So I literally yell at the younger one ” how can you say such things” ! … He shoots a blank stare at me, then turns to the elder kid and says ” Sorry” … It’s so blank as if he is saying his own name , blank, no weight of emotion. does it bother me , hell yes ! Why ? You will know .. read on …

So then I continue cooking. I hear a loud voice from the living room, it’s the fantastic progression of verbal fight to physical abuse. So by the time I cam back to the living, the younger one is whimpering with pain, tears in his eyes, bullish anger on his face , he is yelling while wrestling with the elder one ” Let me go you sicko, mentally ill”… Did I blow off louder than the pressure cooker ?! .. Yes I did. I just had to release a very tiny sample of my anger very organically through my throat ” can you both just stop it right now??”.. And with that I simply walked into the Balcony and took few deep, long breaths to make sure my system is running as it should.

Why am I so anxious about a normal scene that’s pretty much common in any home where two or more teen siblings are under one roof? A day before flashback gets a sudden significance here. So at work place, from the last 2 years it has been chaotic. thanks to Covid and Work from home. We have people working at various people peeling off their marks of saint like manners and coming off the edge in calls. Understandably , they are locked at home too in these 2 years, so it’s much expected.

I see a series of incidents happening where people are utterly irresponsible with what the organization has trusted them with, and then come into the calls and say ” sorry” !! .. Seriously ? is that what we get ?!! I see people started finding comfort in saying sorry… So much so that it now works as that cushion laid on floor before you knowingly jump from heights. I see an alarming sense of irresponsibility that is growing in us, because we know ” Agar galti ho gaya tho zyada se zyada kya, sorry bol denge”. We are at that now, instead of ” why are we doing this in first place”. I see that many people today are using sorry as a penalty that’s not so very pinching as the real monitory one. When you are running late, you break the signal , you speed, you pay. Would you do it again if need be , Hell yes, I would and then I pay penalty. A sorry isn’t supposed to be like this … A sorry is supposed to mean, ” I know I am wrong, and I will never do that again”

A friend called the other day whose husband literally absconded leaving her and two kids. Then the inlaws visited her a couple of time in her parents house and asked her to come home. She didn’t want to go until they agree that what the husband did is wrong. They didn’t , so she didn’t go. Every time they came they had this statement repeated from their side, ” look beta, whatever happened, it is in between you too. You both are wrong. if you come home now at least our pride will stay intact in extended family”. Then when finally they realized she is not gonna come with them, they said “How many times we said sorry and please, how rude of you to ignore all of that and reject us”!! … Now, that is dangerous isn’t it … Your son spoiled lives of 3 there, and you are worried that your sorry was ignored?? Does your sorry hold ANY power at all, if you have no intention of agreeing that what your son did is wrong, and you will never abandon the lady again ! If you believe both the woman and man are wrong in this case, what are you sorry for ?

So when I see these little young men at home keep chanting sorry, instead of not saying/doing something wrong , it ticks me off. May be it’s simply my anxiety that is making me think so long.

After I walked into Balcony to simply sit quite, slowly the younger one came in. Said, ” Sorry ma”.. I laughed harder. Asked him, what is it , why is he sorry. He says ” because I said wrong things to the big bro”. A sense of relief , I was dreading that he may say ” I am sorry because you are angry” :)))) That would have destructed my entire 15 yrs of parenting in a tick.

This whole episode anyway followed by gyan as to how you deal with adults and people elder to you etc … But somehow this left me thinking, when did the word sorry lost it’s meaning !

may be it’s when we said sorry for being louder even when it is required, or when we said sorry for other’s mistake just to stop an argument, or when we said sorry just to stop someone who is leaving… I am a very polite person, I use thank you, Sorry and please often. But today, I am dropping sorry from my list. List of words which I think, demonstrate my polite side 🙂 We need to be us , not just polite.