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Jake has picked up a rather impressive and useful new habit.  He now frequently says, “I’m sorry.”

The thing is, I’m not entirely certain whether he’s saying it when he’s the one who has something to be sorry for.  More often, I fear, he’s merely pointing out my own lack of social graces.

When, for example, I inadvertently elbow him in the head as I’m folding laundry.  Does his, “I’m sorry, Mommy” mean he’s sorry he got his head in the way of my elbow?  Or am I the party who should be apologizing, since my elbow feels just fine, thanks, and I generally do avoid using it to clock my son in the head?

Or what about yesterday, when Jake said, “I’m sorry,” as we were enjoying a warm, sunny day by tossing his football at the park?  In particular, what about the moment I tossed it right into his forehead?  Was his apology an acknowledgement of his still burgeoning coordination (assuming he ever possesses such a thing, being my child, after all)?  Or of his mother’s own uncoordinated reasons for generally not throwing footballs at living creatures?

The heartbreaker came some time between midnight and two last night, as he began yelling for me to remove him from his crib to my bed for the third night in a row.  “I’m not happy,” I said grimly as I lifted him into my arms.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a small, scared voice.

No tired, angry lectures from me followed.  And, in fact, when I later put him back in his crib, he slept through the night without bothering me again.

I should feel really good about this.  I should be proud of my son for understanding that it upsets me to be awakened in the middle of the night and for his quite apt apology.

Instead, however, I feel a bit like maybe I was the one who should be apologizing.

More Than Just Seeing Both Sides

After two years of parenthood, I understand the guilt over expecting Jake to sleep all alone when I get to cuddle up to my snoring partner (even if sometimes the snoring means I don’t really want to).  That’s not the reason I am wondering who should have been apologizing to whom last night.

Rather, it’s the context of all Jake’s “I’m sorry’s.”  Or, perhaps more accurately, the fact that they are coming from a little boy who is just now learning the meaning of the phrase.

One could easily assume that, as the person with superior knowledge and experience, I probably have a better grasp of the in’s-and-out’s of when to say “I’m sorry.”  But I’m skeptical.  I’m unwilling to pass up the rare opportunity to get back to the roots of the matter, to learn from someone who hasn’t been influenced by diamond ads telling me there’s no better way to say “I’m sorry” or by HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey giving a most insincere, “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” when Dave asks him to open the pool bay doors or by Paul McCartney singing, “We’re so sorry, Uncle Albert.”  (I actually have no idea when the last means, but it sure is stuck in my head right now.)

In other words, I see an opportunity to learn from my toddler.

And here’s what I figure.  I figure the “I’m sorry” can go either way.  It can mean that he really is sorry for getting his head in the way of my elbow.  Though this possibility makes me really, really sad for his lack of self-confidence.  More likely — because I feel it is important to be clear that Jake has wonderful self-confidence, really — it means what I think it means.  That I’m the one who should be saying, “I’m sorry.”

This is not to say that we should all be spending more time apologizing for every accidental elbow shift.  It is, however, to say that we should be aware of how even our smallest actions affect others.  And, rather than allow this small idea to blow up into a world of paralyzed agoraphobia, to celebrate this fact.  To celebrate how we are all connected.  And to celebrate the opportunity this fact gives us to shift perspectives.  To see, even if only occasionally, that sometimes we really can say “I’m sorry” and mean it.

The Responsibilities and Joys of Interconnectedness

As I write this, I sense just ahead a steep hill down which my argument will glide, gathering speed until this turns into a meditation on how every one of us is responsible for everyone else’s pain, difficulties, unhappiness.

This is, of course, far from the truth.  In fact, it suggests that the argument made it only part way down the hill and then got caught on a rocky outcropping of the mind.  The mind, after all, likes things self-contained.  It’s simpler that way.  It’s easy.  You can chart a path that is yours alone and don’t have to worry about those things economists label “negative externalities.”   You know, the vagaries of real life that render any neat academic theory nothing more than that.  So that — to your mind — you really are responsible for everyone else and, ergo, can prevent their pain as well as cause it.  Talk about an undue burden.

Instead, the beauty of recognizing how our actions affect others is twofold.  First, it reminds us that we’re not alone.  We can and do touch other people.  Our children.  Our friends.  That frazzled looking woman in front of us in the grocery check-out line who looks so very grateful for a little smile of “I’ve been there too.”  It feels really good to get out of our heads and see where our elbows are.

Second, if our actions affect others, then it follows that we are not alone responsible for what happens in our lives.  Other people influence us and influence the events that surround us as well.  Which is not a free pass to blame everyone but ourselves for our misfortunes.  But it is an invitation to stop feeling like we control everything.  It is the blessing of surrendering to the messiness of life.

In other words, as yoga teaches us, it is a blessing to let go of the need to determine who’s right and who’s wrong, what’s the right path and what’s the wrong one.  Trust comes from simply choosing a path that our heart tells us is the right one.  Forgiving ourselves when that path sometimes leads us through the unhappiness that is — no matter how hard we try to avoid it — a part of life.  And, yes, apologizing — sincerely, deeply, and with good humor — when the path we choose bumps up against someone else’s needs.

And if we can trust ourselves, it’s that much easier to trust others as well.  To trust that they don’t mean to hurt us, even when they forget to say, “I’m sorry.”

This is what my toddler has taught me today.

A Meditation to Bring You Out of Yourself

Generally, when we meditate, we are reminded to “go inside.”  Which, at least for me, can be a particularly problematic place.

Inside, after all, is where all the mind chatter exists.  So that many of my meditations go something like this:  “Am I meditating right now?  Wait, no, I’m talking to myself.  Quiet.  Shh.  Stop thinking.  Stop.  Just … Shoot.  I’m still thinking.”  Sadly, this sort of internal dialogue makes the fifteen minutes during which I am supposedly meditating fly by and therefore can prove irresistible.

Inside is also where I can tie myself up in knots over this whole apology thing.  “Am I in the wrong?” I ask myself.  “Do I deserve to assert my needs, to point out that the other person has a reason to apologize to me?”  Usually I decide I do not have this right and instead simmer quietly about always putting my needs second, as if there is some sort of a hierarchy of who deserves respect.

So, often these days, I find the best way to start medititating is to turn my attention outward.  To be fully aware of my surroundings and my place in them.  And, in this way, to find it that much easier to see that sometimes that other person deserves an apology from me just as much as I deserve one from them.

In other words, to shift me out of my own, singular perspective, into a larger world of which I am a part.

Outward In Meditation