Be willing to apologize. Proper apologies have three parts: 1) what I did was wrong. 2) I’m sorry that I hurt you. 3) How do I make it better? It’s the third part that people tend to forget…. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself. – Randy Pausch (1960-2008)
It’s 8: 00 PM on day 167 of my journey towards independence and I’ve managed to brush my teeth, feed myself strawberry yoghurt for breakfast, go to church – the reverend asked the question what is sin and went to say – I’m paraphrasing – sin is not only doing evil but failing to do good and at that I almost laughed because I had thought it before he had said it LOL 🙂 – go visit my uncles and aunties’ – it was quite boring because all their kids had already left home we wanted to say in the car but my father raked us over the coals for being so rude so went inside just to appease him – next time I think we’ll just stay at home that way we won’t be accused of being rude LOL 🙂 – feed myself rice and curry for lunch, tweet about my Clean Water For All Campaign for a few hours – somebody – I won’t mention her name because she chose to remain anonymous – made a donation of $20 – I had asked her for to make one a couple of months and she said she would do it ASAP – thanks for being true to your word 🙂 – feed myself Chapati – an unleavened flatbread – chicken curry and salad for dinner and watch TV.
Today I was watching My Name Is Earl – an American television comedy about Earl J. Hickey (played by Jason Lee) – a petty criminal whose winning $100,000 lottery ticket is lost when he is hit by a car. Lying in a hospital bed, under the influence of morphine, he develops a belief in the concept of karmic retribution when he hears about karma during an episode of Last Call with Carson Daly. To turn his life around, he makes a list of every bad thing he’s ever done in an attempt to correct them, as he believes that this is the only way he can gain positive karma. After doing his first good deed, he finds the $100,000 lottery ticket he had previously lost. He sees this as a sign of karma rewarding him and, with his newfound wealth, he begins doing good deeds according to his list – and thought I wonder what would happen if everybody created their own lists and went about making all the things that they did wrong right and with that I decided to make my own list (see below). Do you apologize with words or actions? 🙂
My list
- Make up for swearing at my brother by letting him watch TV whenever he wants – I told him about my list and asked him what I could do to make up for my filthy language and he said let me watch TV whenever I want – I have a feeling that the other items on my list won’t be so easy to cross off LOL 🙂
- Give my mother some time to herself for all my bratty behavior in the past
- Try my best not to absorb all of my mother energy so my sister can be the centre of attention for once in her life – my mother loves all her children equally but with me being in a wheelchair she accidentally ignores the others and although my sister would never say it I know she resents me and I can’t say I blame her…. everything in this family revolves around my disability… where we go out to eat, where we go on vacation, where we sit in the movie theatre, etc.