Yesterdays blog was about forgetting the ‘better man project’ and just being a good man – everyday.
Everyday is a long time – it is now and it is always.
You can’t have a bad day as a good man and hurt people and then say sorry and think it will be okay. Saying sorry is a good start but that taking responsibility for your actions is the actual action that you need to take.
I remember when we were all saying sorry for something we didn’t think we were responsible for… I always used the analogy of having a cold….
“Sorry you feel bad with your cold” – as opposed to…
“I apologise you have a cold” – but it’s not my fault so why apologise.
An apology is taking responsibility for your actions – “sorry about that” is all very nice and really has no answer, or complaint, but is it taking responsibility – I vote no.
I want to be a good man and take responsibility for my actions on a daily basis. But, there is a catch. Apologise freely, or better still stop and don’t do that thing that I might have to apologise for in the first place – that is the good man.
The good man today does not wipe out the not so good man of yesterday. It does also not wipe out all the ‘sorries’ when there should have been ‘apologies.’
In thinking about this, I wondered is is all that apologising and saying sorry really doing anything – is anyone really any better for it?
The answer that continued to boom through my head was ‘Yes”.
Not that long ago I was contacted by someone that I had wronged a long time ago – for all those years I put it down to good old youthful exuberance. They told me what I had done had hurt them for years and it was a horrible time in their life. I said sorry… I hope I apologised. But, most of all I realised that neither of these things seemed enough. I dont know what to do to make up for this wrong – but, I do know the universe will tell me when that time is and I will have to pay the piper – and I will pay him gladly.
Taking responsibility for your actions can be a hard pill to swallow – you can choke on it and it may kill you. It may kill the construct of the person you thought you were – it may kill your ego. These are things we don’t risk in our modern dog eat dog life.
But, and there is always a but….
In my ‘Dr Google’ research I came across something interesting in all my searches about taking responsibility for your actions… and it was in the Alcoholic’s Anonymous 12 steps program… (these are a few of the 12 and in actual order but with a few edited out – do a search and next time you may be kinder to someone who you think is, or is, an alcoholic – they are undertaking something much harder than any pretend better man project…)
- Admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Make a list of persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
So, the battling drunk up the street may just be a good man (or woman) trying to undertake the recompense for a life not so well led. … and if you want to baulk at the God bit, just think about editing that out instead of trashing the entire sentence – perhaps it is easier to not get passed the ‘God bit’ because you then can avoid the ‘ourselves’ bit.
When you think about their list it can be overwhelming – when you think about your list it may be a surprise – when I think about my list, especially those closest to me, it is staggering.
I am following the 12 steps and it may not be God even to me, but the Universe is always watching – it is where we came from and where we will go back to. Remember there may be one molecule in your body that was once the heart of a star – and that is a legacy that deserves recognition and somehow, somewhere, a sense of awe!
I want each day to not be about being the better man sometime in the future and to hell with my past in getting there, well getting there tomorrow.
I want want each day to be about me being a good man and acknowledging that yesterday has a whole lot of responsibilities that I have to also take responsibility for and when I can ‘I apologise’ and do what I can to make amends.
Some days this may sting, but often the acknowledgement takes no more than will and acceptance … and that may not be pretty.
I have been a good man today and I accept all the responsibilities for my wrongs of all the yesterdays to here… I will be a good man tomorrow and make amends where I can.
Bye the way – I do not think this is a task, I think it is a privilege – because we, I, am still here to do it.