CONFIDENCE

Since we recently moved, we have a few things around the house that we are trying to sell because they don't fit or work for our new home. The other night, we made plans to meet with someone who wanted to buy an item. I had told the person that Landon would be meeting him for the exchange but then he was called to an impromptu church meeting and I was the one available. When the guy showed up, I found myself saying "sorry" for it being me who was meeting him instead of Landon even though there was not a single inconvenience that happened because of the switch, he probably didn't even note it and definitely wasn't hurt by it. What was I sorry for?

This isn't the first of this kind of "sorry" experience for me. I tend to apologize a lot.... to the extent that a lot of times I feel like I'm apologizing for existing. When did the word sorry become a way for me to hide myself, instead of for its true purpose of healing wrongs and making peace?

I think it began when I first started to be shy. Shyness came from insecurities and insecurities led to apologizing for them. I'm less shy now, but mostly just as insecure (at least before this new determination with The Joy Series) and so the sorrys still pile up. I apologize to the customer service representative when I take a second to get to my phone after being on hold for a half hour. I apologize to my baby for putting him down so I can go to the bathroom. I apologize to that terrible corner of the counter I always hit my hip on. And the list goes on and on. I apologize for real things too that I just shouldn't. For not getting what I think is enough done during the day. For getting loud as I get more and more excited about a story I'm telling. For saying "I love you" too often to my family. For crying when I feel the Spirit. It's those sorrys that begin to paint a picture that who I am is something to be sorry for.

It turns out there really isn't anything too unique about my distortion of "sorry." From a very interesting article in The New York Times called "Why Women Apologize and Should Stop," it appears that women more than men tend to struggle with apologizing too often and for things that don't need apologizing. The article's author Sloane Crosley is reacting to a new Pantene commercial that asks women to replace sorry with confidence.

Crosley talks about her own apology habits as well as references several studies and expert opinions as to why women over apologize. She recounts an experience saying, "One by one, various accomplished women on a panel apologize, first for trivial things like being allergic to caffeine, or for talking over one another, but finally for having the gall to exist in the first place. The discrepancy between what those women offer the world and how they conduct themselves in it elevates the sketch from amusing to disturbing."

But saying sorry isn't all bad. In another article titled "I'm Sorry, but Women Really Need to Stop Apologizing" featured in TIME, by author Jessica Bennett, she writes that perhaps our female tendency towards saying "sorry" comes from a special skill set which builds and maintains relationships better because we acknowledge our weaknesses and strive to overcome them. Being aware of things that we may do wrong allows us to build empathy for others when they make mistakes. Bennett continues by saying that using "sorry" can humanize forms of correspondence that put distance between our words and ourselves such as email and texting. And lastly she says that saying "sorry" can make us seem nicer. But the question she concludes with is when does saying "sorry" become a "crutch and a way to downplay female power?"

With this inspiration, here begins my journey to stop saying "sorry," at least when there is no good reason to be sorry. I'm ready to accept the fact that I am human and can't possible do everything right so I will need a "sorry" here and a "sorry" there so that I can make wrongs right. But I am also determined to know what Julia Child knew, which is that a lot of good comes from me existing and to apologize for myself as a person completely discredits that. So here's to never apologizing for existing.

....

So tell me, how do you replace sorry with confidence?