Apologies

There was a commercial years ago…..starts out with a close-up of a surly teenage girl (is there any other kind?) who is rolling her eyes and saying, “I’m not gonna be grounded for this, am I?”…camera cuts to parents looking fairly exasperated and stunned….back to child who sarcastically says…”I said I was sorry”….then the camera pans out to reveal a car crashed thru the living room wall.
I loved this commercial, it still makes me laugh thinking about it. What seems so evident in this case is how silly the teenager sounds, we all get that …right? So when an adult says basically the same thing with that exact amount of actual remorse, I’m not fooled. Words mean nothing if not voiced with a degree of sincerity. I’ve said to my kids, “Sometimes ‘sorry’ just isn’t enough”….it applies to adults as well.

An apology doesn’t give you a pass on taking responsibility for what you’ve done. In fact, that’s the hallmark of a genuine apology, being willing to accept the consequences. If you’re apologizing in order to get amnesty for your crimes….that’s not an apology, that’s a sham.