THELast time I said “excuse” – indeed, “excuse” – It was a few days ago. I went out with the car from a parking lot and I asked a driver in a double row to advance a little. “Excuse me, he could kindly …” I could have said very well: «Could you move the car? Thank you ». A clear, polite, even authoritative request. So why did I apologize? After all, I was certainly not the one in wrong.
“Sorry for the disturbance”, “sorry if I say mine”
“Sorry for the disturbance”, “sorry if I say mine”, “sorry … I don’t want to seem intrusive”. Have you ever noticed how many times do we pronounce phrases like this, every day? Without wanting to, we are Olympic champions of unnecessary apologies. Okay, most of the time they are simple courtesy formulas. But they often hide something more: Shyness, insecurity, need to be accepted, and it is better to know.
Decide you!
At least this is what they argue Tara-Louise Wittwer, German writer and influencer author of the bestseller Sorry, but I don’t apologize (Joints), and Flavia Trupia, professor of rhetoric and popularizer who, in his Let’s take the floor (Piemme), He has observed career women closely: «Words are power. And that power we must take it back ».
Do we apologize for what?
According to Wittwer, we are above all of the Gentilsesso to put on A “sorry” in every sentence, as if our own existence was something to justify. By dint of apologizing for every sigh, opinion or presence, however, we have transformed, by our knowledge, a gesture of kindness into an automatic reflection of inner submission and sabotage. With the result of devalcing us alone.
“Hi, sorry if you disturb you …”
The right excuses can repair a mistake and strengthen a link
For example, I have a friend who, every time, who calls someone, starts with: “Hello, sorry if you disturb you … sorry.” Shoot a burst of premises, as if he meant: “I hope you have time for me, I promise that I will be invisible.” “It’s not kindness,” explains Wittwer. «It is survival. A form of self -censorship that has taught us, over the centuries, to occupy less space, To never be too much: too competent, present, or more in view of the necessary. So we came to smoot up our thoughts as edges to be filed. Enough!”.
Those good girls
In fact, how many times we limit ourselves, by conditioned reflection, to affirm: “You decide!”, “No really, everything is fine for me.” Maybe too many. «All these formulas are taught to us since childhood. At school, we raise our hand to speak »observes the psychologist Irene Sanguineti, author of Let’s always talk (Sperling & Kupfer).
«Over time you end up always apologizing. Those who have a low self -esteem, then, tend to ask for permission for everything: it is a way to calm the anxiety, the fear of refusal, the need to be reassured. When I say “sorry if you disturb you” and the other replies “but no, tell me too”, I feel legitimized to speak»Continue Sanguineti.
Words have a weight
Taylor Swift (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
«Words have a weight. If we always apologize, however, we are saying – to ourselves, even before the others – that we need a permit to live “. Cinema, advertising, social: the “good girls” are always myths, polite, smiling. Those that raise the voice become “hysterical”, “unpleasant”, “difficult”.
Taylor Swift also tells it in his biopic American Miss. In a passage, the singer realizes how often he justifies himself for everything. “Sorry, did I do too much noise in my house, bought with my money, earned with my songs?” ironizes.
World Sample of apologies in work
«It is another striking example of the patriarchal culture in which we live. The Swift also described it in the song The Man: “If I were a man, I would be the best.” As if to say: the apologies, sometimes, are an armor to defend themselves from a male world that takes “less” »continues Sanguineti. We want to avoid conflicts in the professional field, everything is amplified.
A search for Harvard Business Review shows that women are more effective in communication. Still, they always put the word “sorry” in e-mails. When I am in a meeting, in a public debate, they often lower the tone, they make themselves small, they do not raise their hand.
“We apologize because we still feel” guests “in certain contexts”
Trupia starts from this observation. «We apologize because we still feel” guests “in certain contexts. Taking the word is seen as an act of vanity. It must be said, that we also have a bad relationship with the error: if we make mistakes, we guilty. And then it is better not to emerge. Don’t apply for a position. Do not create conflicts. Yet anyone who makes mistakes ».
He tells a personal episode: when he was at the beginning, they asked her to bring the water to the meetings. «I said yes so as not to create tensions. Instead I should have refused, let me assert. The fact is that, after all, I felt a miraculous to be there ». According to the teacher, the apologies can be used strategicly, however.
“Is it a good time?”
Cites a rhetorical figure: the Excusatio Propeer Inferctatem, That is to admit a difficulty at the beginning of a speech so as not to seem arrogant. The perfect example? Alcide De Gasperi at the Paris Conference in 1946, when he made his debut saying: «Taking the word in this world assembly, I feel that everything, except your personal courtesy, is against me. That sentence was worth the respect of the “great” ».
We also confronted the topical editorial staff of I woman. We understood that, in fact, we all fall as long as. In other words, we would need a “detox from excuses”. Instead of “sorry if I disturb”, we could simply say “Is it a good time?” Or “Can I ask you a question?”.
The bon ton of the apologies
“Let me be clear: to apologize is fine» he concludes Elisa Motterle, expert on etiquette and author of Bon ton pop at work (Harpercollins), «But only if you need, when we really are wrong. Otherwise, words lose weight. Above all, within us ».
Wittwer also clearly underlines it: «I don’t want to count how many excuses I did in a year, ninety or one hundred. I am not the commercial director of my empathy. I want to apologize, of course. But only when I really make mistakes. And so it will be from now on ».
Rather: do we seriously sorry when we apologize, after making a mistake? There would still be a lot to discuss. But we will do it, if anything, in another article. Sorry …