Say You're Sorry

What are the rules for "sorry" and why do we have them? Where did we get the idea that feeling badly was adequate recompense for doing wrong? Criminals get lighter sentences if they show "remorse", and the more the better, as if that would repair any damage that they have done. Murderers are more likely to get executed if they don't show remorse. How much "sorry" is enough, and how do we measure it?

If someone has done something to hurt someone or damage their property, why don't they feel an obligation to make it right? Why do we accept apologies instead of demanding change? We get mad when an adult does something wrong and refuses to say he is sorry; we worry about children who do something wrong and apparently feel no remorse. If an adult harms us in some minor way and says something like: "I see that my behavior harmed you, and I'll change it", we would not be satisfied, even though rationally he has responded appropriately. He also must express some kind of remorse or regret, or we will likely feel "disrespected" or worse, that the person is a "bad seed" of some kind, a psychopathic wolf amongst us sheep.

In fact, when someone refuses to express "sorrow" for a rude behavior,we are likely to experience it as a challenge, a personal challenge, It's almost an invitation to a fight, although it's not clear exactly what a fight is expected to accomplish. It may be related to the challenge behavior of primates within a pack, in which a senior member is challenged for his/her position of authority.

But where did we get the idea that we are absolved from personal responsibility by simply saying "I'm sorry?" Feeling guilty or being sorry without changing behavior is a con job.

Freedom and responsibility

I find that most people have a very hazy idea of what is meant by the word "responsibility". I would like to offer a somewhat different perspective and definition.

Responsibility is not the same as blame. "Blaming" is a childlike response to something wrong, and its entire aim is to identify someone or something as the "fall guy(or gal)". The goal of blaming is to assign the task of guilt to someone. Some people assign guilt mostly to others; some assign it to themselves. In any case, once the assignment has been made, the designated "blamee" is expected to feel badly, experience remorse, regret, self-blame, and to display them. Only one person needs to do this, and the group is satisfied to exonerate the others who may have been involved. This display is considered by many to be a "good thing", as if we were all benefited by someone's feeling badly. We even give extra punishment to those convicted of a crime if they don't display adequate self-blame. Why does this gratify us?

Guilt and self-blame have their appropriate place in human development. When we observe them in a child, we are reassured that they are beginning to internalize rules of behavior. This is important because they are able to respond to internal rules, not just external ones. When a child feels badly about something s/he has done, we know the child is accepting our moral values and applying them to self. We know then they belong to our flock. The ones that don't feel badly when they have done wrong scare us, and rightly so. We know such people may develop into psychopaths with no respect for law or the rights of others. When they feel guilty, we feel reassured.

Responsibility, however, is an entirely different animal, and a sense of responsibility can only develop later as the child becomes more intellectually mature. My definition of responsibility is a simple one: I recognize and accept that all the consequences of all my decisions are mine, whether I anticipated them or not. Responsibility is something you have whether you want it or not. It is always 100% and is never divisible. "Accepting responsibility" only means that I consciously recognize that the consequences of my choices are, in fact, part of the choices. It's arbitrary to separate choices from consequences in any case, since everything is connected.

We experience personal freedom when we recognize our power to make choices and accept their consequences as part of the same package. I'm asserting that freedom and responsibility are simply different aspects of the same concept and can't really be distinguished from one another. As a free human I recognize that every moment of my life I am choosing my next step, and that with that choice I accept all the consequences that belong to it. This is the opposite of "living on automatic”. Living on automatic is a way of freedom.

Recognizing your freedom is like opening your eyes and discovering that you are standing in an open plain with no paths to guide you other than your own values. Sometimes people are forced to open their eyes because the paths they were on stopped working for one reason or another. Many times they just want to close their eyes again and go back on automatic because it’s comfortable and predictable. Not everybody wants life to have the excitement of freedom.

Comments are welcome, as always. I do wonder if anyone is out there.....

Growing Up

I've been thinking about the process of growing up a lot. I always thought that I would come to a particular state of adulthood or old age at which point I would somehow be mature, wise, balanced, in a word, a finished product. Now that I'm (coff) of mature years I see that I still struggle with becoming myself, being more honest, less defensive, more direct. I struggle with it on a daily basis, my petty dishonesties, my hiding myself behind a role or a part I choose to play.

Bear with me, if you've read this far, because I think I'm going somewhere with this. Many years ago when I was a young psychotherapist in my own treatment, I read a book named "Effective Psychotherapy" by Helmuth Kaiser. In that book he struggled with the ideas of what made therapy work, and after much thought he decided that therapy (or just simple human maturation) occurs when people "say what they mean and mean what they say". Why is it that this is so bloody hard to do?

Well, I wasn't raised to be honest. I was raised to be a "hero" of accomplishment, a Superman who would make his family proud. That was the way I learned to think of myself. I tested (in my mind) everything I thought or did and every decision I made against that touchstone. I felt like a failure or a disappointment when what I did or what people thought of me didn't fit that measure. Of course, that was much of the time. Did I have freedom? Sure, when I made decisions that fit the role to which I had been assigned. The longer you play a part, the harder it is to remember you are only playing a part. I can't even begin to list the parts I have believed in, but certainly they include: the Overworked Husband, the Dominating Father, the Brilliant Young/Old Therapist, the Arrogant Prick, the Stand-up Comic, the Romantic Lover, the Great Writer, The Angry Young Man, the Rebel Against Authority, the Authority Against Rebels..... the list goes on and on.

My own therapy taught me a lot, but the most important single thing I learned was that it is almost impossible to know when you're telling yourself the truth, but it's a lot easier to know if you're telling the truth when someone is present and listening carefully. I learned to begin to tell truth from fiction slowly. I began to hear when I was bullshitting myself. I gave up old fictions but only to take on a lot of new ones. In retrospect some of the parts I played were really absurd. They were so far from the truth that even thinking about them is somewhat embarrassing. I still can't tell when what I'm thinking about myself is true, but it's a lot easier when I tell someone I trust.

So for me maturation is a long, steady process of peeling off layers of fiction and dramatic parts, struggling to tell uncomfortable truths about myself to those I love, finding those remaining dishonesties and fictions (will I ever bloody get done?) and trying to face them down, admit them and drop them. I try not to invent new fictions too, which is easy. People like to have a box to put you in, and sometimes I find it easier to just get in the box. I try to stay aware that I'm just playing a convenient part, to smooth things over or take less effort. Sometimes I find myself saying outrageous things JUST TO GET OUT OF THE BOX.

It helps to be in a relationship with someone with whom you can be honest about anything. The more you keep yourself to yourself the harder it is for you to find out who you really are. Most people don't even want to know. Have you noticed how much easier it is to be defensive when your role is challenged? As a therapist I've found that people are most self-centered when they're most uncomfortable and defensive. Maybe maturation means just dropping defenses because there is nothing to defend. Peeling off fictions makes me wonder if there is anything at the core, behind all those roles, or if what is there is just very simple, very clear, very direct and totally itself. I believe that is the Buddha nature, but to call it anything is to falsify it and turn it into another role. So we mature (if we mature) toward a greater simplicity and purity of heart. Whatever that is, it has to exist without a name.