Owning Up to Your Mistakes.

I hurt a very dear friend by saying things that I should not have yesterday. I went a little too far and accused him of some hurtful things. No, I am definitely not proud of it, but I don’t know what else I can do except saying that I am sorry and giving him the kind of space to either decide whether he still wants to be my friend or have nothing to have to do with me. Either way, I will understand why he chose to do what he did. Why am I writing this publicly? Because a lot of times, when we hurt a person, it is always somebody closest to us.

I’m only human. I’ve hurt my parents plenty of times, hurt my brother more times than I would have liked to, hurt my friends, and hurt myself in the entire process. But this isn’t about me. It’s about whether we own up to our mistakes and realize, even if it is a little late, that what we did was wrong. It’s about how much we choose to learn from these mistakes we make in our lives. It’s about how much we choose to grow as people. And most importantly, it’s about acknowledging that what you did was wrong, and there is nothing you can say or do to change that.

For those wondering, no this isn’t a very public apology to showcase how terrible I feel about the whole thing, nor is this a plea for forgiveness. I’ll know what’s coming for me should my friend decide to forgive me; if not, I probably deserve that. There isn’t an excuse for it and I should have known better than to hurt somebody as wonderful as him. I won’t justify what I did because there is nothing to justify. But I see the error of my ways and the fine mess that I’ve made, and I realize that this isn’t something that is going to go back to the way it was.

I’m not a child anymore. I cannot play that game where I ignore my friend for a while and things go back to how they used to be a short time after. The same thing goes for all of us. I get why people wouldn’t want to hang on to the problematic people in their lives, but those of us who have people we would fight for should know when to drop their egos and apologize before we lose somebody wonderful. And I’ll say this about the amazing few in our lives, they’re not an easy lot to come by.

We’ve all done something we cannot turn around. But we sure wish that we could go back in time so you could change all of that. That’s kind of how I feel right now about possibly having lost one of my best friends. I can do nothing except to apologize and actually mean it. Whether he accepts the apology or not is up to him and that isn’t something I can have a say in. We aren’t perfect. Humans are so flawed, but were the only ones who can actually do something about it instead of burying our heads in the sand when things get hard.

Truth is that unless we own up to our mistakes and understand that there’s no reason why we should let something as stupid as ego come in between us and the people we love, there is no fixing things. There is no hope for us until we let that rigid part of ourselves go and surrender ourselves to the kind of pain that comes with repentance. The Universe is fair to everybody— you cause pain and the pain will catch up to you, sooner or later. There is no escaping the agony that comes with knowing the kind of hurt that we have caused. It’s even worse knowing that person you’ve hurt is somebody you would fight to the end for.

But that’s just how life is sometimes. We all have our ugly moments, and I don’t mean physically, but we also have the power to apologize. At this very moment, the best I can do is convey a heartfelt apology to my best friend, hoping that he can find it in him to forgive me someday. But I know that I will spend the rest of my life regretting that I let a silly argument turn into a hurtful conversation that there’s just no going back from. It isn’t something that I can expect. But I would feel so much worse if I had just sit here knowing that I had hurt one of my loved ones and done nothing to make up for it.

This isn’t a cautionary tale to anybody. This isn’t me showing off that I can turn everyday mistakes into life lessons. This is a request. Think twice before you say anything at all. And if you ever do hurt somebody (there’s no doing so ‘by mistake’), own up to it and have it in you to apologize and not belittle them for being hurt over your actions. More importantly, be prepared for whatever they decide because forgiveness doesn’t come easy. You have to earn it.

I am not saying that I deserve to be forgiven for what I did. I cannot begin to imagine what my friend is going through right now. But my gut tells me that this isn’t right, that I should do everything in my power to apologize and fight to keep this person in my life, not because I cannot go on without my best friend by my side, but because after nearly 4 and a half years of being best friends, I owe him at least this much (and so much more). I understand that I may not get my friend back after all, but that is not my decision to make.

We owe it to the people in our lives to grow as a person and constantly learn how to apologize and forgive without letting ego get in the way. I am in no way innocent in this whole situation and this is me accepting that in front of possibly thousands of people. I don’t know if what I did deserves to be forgiven at all, but do not let petty arguments take an ugly turn because it might not be something you can reverse, no matter how much you try.

We’re all just human and we all make mistakes, some worse than the others. Some that we’ll spend the rest of our lives making up for. But what is the point of this life if we don’t see the error of our ways and learn from it? What is the point if, knowing fully well that we must face our problems instead of running away from them, we still do not own up to our mistakes? What is a life lived if we kept breaking the very things we love?

Be better than you were yesterday. Learn to apologize at the very least, instead of just watching people slip away and doing nothing. We are so much better than this.

With a heavy heart,
The Shubhster. Xx

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Featured Image by Stefano Pollio on Unsplash