The Bitch is Back
This is a personal confession I want to share with you.
Whenever I fly anywhere with my spouse, I get prepared to have the middle seat on the plane. Whenever I fly alone I book myself an aisle seat – partly because I am somewhat claustrophobic, partly because of old knee injuries. I really need to stretch my right leg out periodically and an aisle seat is perfect.
So even though he offers me the window seat, it’s not what I want. I want the aisle seat. We just can’t get this worked out.
On the final flight home from vacation last week, the plane had two seating configurations: 2-across and 3-across. After a day of airplane air, airport food, and flight delays, I wasn’t in the best of moods. When I saw that we had seats in the 3-across row instead of the row where we could just sit together and be undisturbed by an unknown third person, I got triggered.
And I had to complain right that minute in the public arena of the airplane that he did a bad job of choosing our seats. As we made our way to our seats, I couldn’t stop criticizing him. And being very clear about my disappointment about his lack of consideration… and on and on… In my defense, I was hungry and tired and it was noisy and I hate noise and et cetera et cetera. All the same, I unleashed the bitch and she was enjoying herself: “You know better.” “Why didn’t you.” No questions, just accusations.
However You Get There The Important Part is the Apology
At this point in the journey I’m settled into my seat and a pleasant young man who is not taking up too much room is sitting in the aisle seat. I calmed down and got a hold of myself and looked at what just happened. I saw I had unfairly attacked my spouse and violated my own advice. I needed to set things right…I can’t change the past but I can reboot… there was a system error and I needed to auto-correct. And the way to do that is to apologize.
Even though I was disappointed, I got angry based on assumptions. My assumption of the moment was, “You only think about yourself.” And I got caught up in the cultural addictions of self-righteousness and blame.
The embarrassing part is that he was paying attention, both when he booked the flight and right then. He was sitting on the plane thinking about what I said. He looked at me and told me he was pretty sure he had booked us seats in the 2-across row, and he thought the airline switched out planes to a larger plane and possibly our seats got changed that way. (BTW this is something that amazes me – he actually knows if we are flying on a 737 or 747 or whatever.) I was impressed that he went back and reviewed his steps and tried to puzzle it out. And he managed to up my sense of embarrassment at the same time.
Just like for most of you, apologizing for being a jerk isn’t always easy and I had to think about it. Should I say something now in this loud airplane? Wait until we get to the baggage area (this leg of the flight was a short one)? Wouldn’t the baggage area be even louder? Wait until we get home? Well, our house sitter will be there… Postpone apologizing until tomorrow?
So I just went for it as we waited for the bags to come off the carousel. “It wasn’t fair of me to jump on you about the seats. I apologize.”
Boy did I surprise him. He opened his eyes really wide and thanked me. We sealed the deal with a kiss.
System rebooted successfully!
The power of apology can heal the small momentary relationship rifts that have the potential to grow into resentments. The bottom line is that it is easier to say I made a mistake just now and I’m sorry than to hold on to anger, resentment and blame. When you apologize in the moment, you can move on to whatever is next without dragging any of the yucky energy into the future.
While the power of apology can set relationships right, it also helps you directly – apology frees you from having to sit with feelings and thoughts of either guilt or self-righteousness, the kind of feelings and thoughts that take up precious real estate in your mind and distract you from being fully engaged in the now.
Apologies don’t have to take a lot; they don’t need to come with long explanations. What apology requires is willingness – your willingness to show another person respect and to look at things from another person’s point of view once in a while.
