Sorry

This morning during at meeting at work, I found myself saying to a co-worker who was complaining that a sandwich he'd had the previous week during a meeting, "Dude, not my fault."

I hadn't made the sandwich. Sure, I'd picked it up from a local Subway, but I didn't make it. And wow, how freeing were those words?

I can't even tell you.

See, I have this compulsion to apologize for everything. It doesn't matter if whatever I'm apologizing for isn't my fault. I still want to apologize.

When I was about six years old, I remember my dad apologizing for something that was totally not his fault and I wondered at the time why he was apologizing.

And now I do the same thing.

So, today, almost two weeks into the new year, I'm making another resolution.

I'm going to stop apolozing for things that aren't my fault. Perhaps this is an extention of my resolution to be kinder to myself.

Of course, in an effort to be kinder to others, I'll have to find new phrases to replace my ever-ready, "I'm sorry."

So maybe..."Ohh, that's too bad."

I suppose that "Sucks to be you." isn't so kind and shouldn't be considered a viable replacement for "I'm sorry."

Too bad, I sort of like that one.

But in all seriousness, it's time for me to stop taking the blame/responsibility for everything that goes wrong. It's not my fault and I'm done saying I'm sorry for it.

So yeah, sucks to be whomever isn't happy at the moment if whatever make them unhappy isn't my fault. I may try to help fix the situation but I'm not longer apologizing for the creation of the situation.

And it feels good to give myself permission to stop saying I'm sorry. Because it's not always my fault. And I need to remember that.

Here's to continued kindness and taking responsibility only for those things that I control. The rest will have to take care of itself.