social esteem

The Challenges of Honesty, Openness, and Truth

Ron Johnson communication, Development, emotional maturity, Feelings, mindfulness, Personality, relationships, Self-Awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

I am no philosopher, but like all people, I delve into the medium and art of philosophy unavoidably as we all do. I am certain that philosophes could be bemused by my meanderings in their territory with my minimal training and understanding of such things. I am often bemused by people meandering into the realm of psychology, like the current days when seemingly everyone has at least one psychological diagnosis. So, granting my philosophical superiors much greater understanding of things philosophical, I will indulge myself by attempting to blend the philosophical concept of “truth” and its cognates with things that I do understand, namely the different characteristics of personality.

This blog has been brewing for several weeks in my mind but just the morning I received a request from a patient of mine that required me to delve into the matter of honesty. In this man’s case, he asked that I render some advice as to how he should handle a complex situation in his life that centered on a forthcoming funeral for his father. I did my best to help him migrate these murky waters but not without a good deal of thought and feeling. This matter of truth and its cognates, openness and honesty is no easy matter. I did my best with my patient, and I will do my best with this blog but admittedly I am not particularly skilled in the philosophical matters. It does occur to me that the very words, philosophy, derives from the Greek, namely philos, which means “love” and Sophia, which means wisdom; hence the love of wisdom. (Note that Philadelphia derives from philos and adelphos, which means brother; hence “the city of brotherly love). So, when we delve into philosophical matters, such as truth, we are seeking to “love wisdom,” perhaps thinking the wise thing or doing the wise thing,

In this blog I will dare to fuse the concepts of personality and philosophy with the grave danger of being simplistic or artificial. If you have followed me over these recent years, you have heard me speak of personality type and personality temperament among other elements of making what I call a “friendly diagnosis.” It is in this context that I wish to share with you some things about the whole business of truth and its cognates, openness and honesty. I originally thought of entitling this blog something like “different kinds of lying,” but then I listened to my own way of thinking about life and psychology and decided it would be better to look at how people of different personality stipes might face the matter of truth et al. Among the ways of understanding differences in personality, I often make use of the terms “personality type” and “temperament,”

And occasionally differences in personal development, cultural background, and differences in the various aspects of intelligence. Instead of examining all of these elements of human existence, I choose to focus on a couple of areas of personality, and examine how we could examine truth, or the lack thereof, within these boundaries, possibly leaving other ways of examination for a later exploration. Before I dare to dive into how differences of personality affect one’s approach to truth, we must consider the whole concept of truth itself.

Truth and consequences

Obviously, I borrow this title from the parlor game and the TV show that existed before most of you were born. I intend to render (perhaps my simplistic) distinctions between the terms honesty, truth, and openness because while they are second cousins these three terms represent somewhat different elements of the idea of being honest. My minimal understanding of these terms is as follows:

  • Truth: something that is accurate or an accurate representation of something. Hence there are “truthful words that represent a feeling, a thought, or an action.
  • Honesty: speaking the truth as one knows it. Perhaps also keeping silent so as to avoid agreeing with a statement made by another person that is felt/thought to be untrue. There is also the element of “being honest with yourself”…or not.
  • Openness: the expression, or perhaps a personality tendency, to express one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions

As a result, we have the complex situations where:

  • A person could be honest not actually be speaking the truth because s/he did not know the whole truth. It is even possible for someone to be speaking the truth as s/he sees it but it is not actually the truth. Children do this all the time and are false accused of “lying” when they actually “saw the ghost in the room.”
  • A person who could be open in some expression but not necessarily be honest. I may openly espouse something that I don’t actually believe. This might be as the simple nod of the head when you hear something that you don’t agree with so as to avoid hurting your friend’s feelings.
  • A person can speak the truth but not being open about certain matters that relate to the truth s/he is speaking. This is something like speaking some of the truth but not all of it. It is this element that I want to tackle next.

Different kinds of truth in personality characteristics

Here I choose to examine three elements (of the available four) that are the result of the Jungian concept of psychological type or as Myers-Briggs calls it, personality type. Here I note examples of how people engage the world of truth and its cognates differently.

Differences in perception: how we see the world

  • I see the world objectively. Hence I see things as they are, not as they should be or the way I would like them to be. I tend to make statements rather than asking questions. I tend to be honest with what I see, but because I don’t see all that can be, I do not see the whole picture, namely something that could happen, or perhaps even should happen. This roughly falls into the category of being “honest but not necessarily speaking the truth.” Such people tend to get lost in the real world, perhaps the practical world but often miss the rest of life that is not real and objective. I can “lie” to other people without realizing that I am “lying” because I didn’t see all there was to see. Kierkegaard said of these people, “everything is real but nothing is meaningful.”
  • I see the world subjectively. Hence, I see what could be, might be, or should be, but not necessarily what actually is. I tend to be honest about looking for things, and often ideas and tend to ask questions. I can be quite satisfied to ask questions without having complete answers. I want to speak the truth and often do so but I to be “dishonest” by getting lost is ideas, possibilities and questions. I tend to “lie to myself” in the constant finding new ideas and having new questions but not really doing anything real. Kierkegaard said of these people, “all things are possible but nothing is real.”
  • I evaluate the world objectively: Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” If I evaluate objectively, I think objectively, feel objectively, and act objectively. What you see is what you get. I reason with logic and have a sense of the ultimate fairness in making a decision that is based on reason. I do the “right” thing…regardless of how anyone “feels” and even regardless of how I feel. I can get caught in being truthful to logic but not truthful to my feelings, much less anyone else’s feelings.
  • I evaluate the world subjective. Descartes could have said, “I feel, therefore I am,” although many contemporary psychological writers have suggested that could be a way of looking at decisions. If I evaluate subjectively, I “feel,” whatever that means (read our book, please), and attend to my feelings and other people’s feelings. “Truth” is thus highly related to feelings and to relationships and cannot be explored, felt, or expressed apart from these elements. Thus, I can speak “truth” that is related mostly to how I feel or someone else feels, which may actually be truthful in the objective sense of the terms
  • I am energized by being with people: I talk in order to be listened to and to be talked to. I tend to be “open” with my thoughts and/or feelings and expect other people to do the same. This openness, however, is not always exactly “true” because I can embellish, enlarge, or elaborate with colorful metaphors seeking to “communicate” what I feel or think. This amounts to being open but not entirely honest. I also can fall into not being honest with myself for the sake of communicating with someone. I tend to “lie” objectively, say something that is not factually true.
  • I am energized by being alone or with one special person. I tend to keep my feelings entirely to myself and most of my thoughts to myself. I am honest with myself but not necessarily honest with people around me perhaps thinking, “It’s none of their business what I think or feel unless I want them to know.” I tend to lie subjectively, i.e. not saying something that is true.

Examples of “lying” by good people

You might enjoy reading my blog, “Why Good Men Lie,” which examines the tendency of men to lie to women. In the same blog I suggest that while men lie to their spouses, unfortunately, women tend to lie to themselves, also unfortunately.

I am reminded of an experience I had 30 years ago with a group of men who regularly attended a men’s group that I led. One night one fellow named Bill said to the group that he believed that some of the men didn’t like him, and proceeded to ask whether this was true. Each man responded to the question, and I remember one man saying to this man that he “flat out didn’t like him,” while another man said, “Sure, Bill, I like you.” I inquired with the second man privately why he said that he liked Bill given that I had heard that he most certainly didn’t like him at all. His response: “he is not important to me so I didn’t feel compelled to tell him the truth.” Some weeks later, Bill was speaking about some subject what seemed to go on without profit and one after another men left the group, seemingly bored or disinterested. This left one man yet in the room with Bill, the man who said that he “flat out didn’t like” him. Such a mix of truth and consequences, truth, honesty, and openness.

I have seen many courageous statements of truth despite the consequences:

  • The man who speaks his mind and as a result is not allowed to graduate from a seminary because that “truth” didn’t seem to fit with the “truth” the seminary held
  • The woman, in the company of his former husband, when the two of them were discussing the challenges of their son. She said that the reason that the two of them had been divorced was that she had been “unfaithful” and possibly caused their son harm because of it
  • The child (actually, many children) who said, “I hate you” to his parents. He didn’t know it at the time but he had the permission to say such things because he lived in a loving home.
  • A few politicians who are courageous enough to challenge the party line and take the consequences. Liz Cheney comes to mind as does John McCain.

I have seen many more examples of the lack of truth spoken…or not spoken:

  • The several women who spring the “D” word on their husbands having evidently lived with someone they didn’t like for years…or decades
  • The several men who have been unfaithful to their spouses, sometimes with their common friends or relatives
  • The teenager who has simply not found the social maturity to be honest about whether he did, indeed, brush his teeth or take a shower

 

These are my current thoughts. But I must leave you with this, abridging the statement, “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” Perhaps truth is also in the eyes of the beholder. But I am also cognizant of Shakespeare’s statement, “When first we practice to deceive, oh what a tangled web we weave.” I am brought back to the patient I mentioned at the beginning who is trying to find a way to be wise, kind, loving, and honest with his family, girlfriend, and himself. He has a very tangled web that has been constructed by many people including himself.

The Last Half of Life

Ron Johnson appreciation, Development, Discovery, Feelings, grief, happiness, men's issues, mindfulness, Opportunity, Self-Awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

I’m in the last half of life. Perhaps, I should put quotes around that statement because I am not speaking concretely and practically but abstractly and metaphorically. I just flew by my 77th birthday a bit ago and now I’m well into my 78th year of life. Who knows how long I will live: a day, a year, 10 years, or 30 years? Yes, I suppose I could live to 107 but that seems quite likely. I am actually at the average age where Americans people die, and actually a couple years beyond the average lifespan of men, which is 75, so it behooves me to examine such things. Let me get to the point of this “last half of life” business.

The last half of life

I have come to use the phrase, the last half of life, metaphorically, not as a chronological measure. Half of the typical life of an American is about 38 years. But many people never see their 38th birthday and many see years well beyond 76. I am using the last half of life to mean the period in a person’s life that s/he might make a lasting contribution to life, perhaps something substantially different from the “first half of life,” whatever that period of time might be. I am presently seeing many men who are in “the last half” of their lives, but their ages range from 35 to 78. I will be gathering some of these men together for a day of reflection, encounter, and forward-looking even though the challenges and dilemmas of these men are substantially different. What remains the same for them is finding meaning in the rest of their lives. These men are quite seriously looking at what the past, the present, and the future in order to go forward with self-confidence:

  • They are looking at what they have done right, what they have done wrong, what they could have done, what they should have done, and what they shouldn’t have done. These men are looking at the past with what we might call “the wisdom of age” or “the 20-20 vision of hindsight.”
  • They are looking at the present with a certain perspective, namely what they are now doing including what they should be doing, what they shouldn’t be doing, and what they want to be doing.
  • They are looking at the future as to what they could do, what they should do, and even what they feel they have to

Who is looking at the last half of life?

Let me tell you about some of these men. (And permit me to use the masculine pronoun from here on because I am just talking about men. There may be some great similarities with women or perhaps some profound differences, but that is another piece of literature that I am not qualified to write.). Of course, all the names are fictional as are some of the professions and situations in life so as to protect the privacy of these men. Nevertheless, the thoughts, feelings, and actions of these men are wholly factual.

  • Jack is the 78-year old, and my only patient who is actually older than I am. He has been a very successful person in his trade, which has been social work. He has continued to work until just recently when outlived his usefulness at the agency he worked for. Previous to that work he has had some very responsible and successful people and is a person deeply committed to his work, and also to his faith. Unfortunately, over the years, including the 50-some year of marriage, he has not managed his money very well and is in an almost dire financial situation. He is looking to the “last half” of his life free of this financial burden but also have a life with genuine meaning.
  • Sam is a 35-year old very successful businessman who owns a trade-based company. He has been quite disturbed by the recent election and the many changes in the culture and politics and wants to “make a difference” in the world in some way. He has considered selling his business and moving on but has no idea where, when, and how he would “move on.”
  • Peter has been successful in human resources for many years. He has made a significant amount of money, but now has been “downsized” as many companies now do. But he has taken the huge step of working on a master’s degree in psychology and hopes to enter the field. By the way, he is in a very unsatisfying marriage, has three adolescent kids one of whom is going to college this fall. So not only is he changing professions, he is also changing his parental role and possibly his marriage situation.
  • Tom of 63 but you wouldn’t know it because he so spy and active. He has had a couple of professions over the years, including a good stint in ministry, but he has been quite successful in sales. He, too, like Peter (and another man as well) is looking into the field of psychology or counseling. By the way, his marriage is also on the rocks to his great dismay because his wife left him having discovered that 33 years ago she shouldn’t have married him.
  • A man who may soon be inheriting a very successful professional business from his father, a business for which he is trained but not interested. His interests seem to lie more in teaching and coaching.
  • There are several others in situations not unlike these, where men have been making tons of money but not happy, have been in difficult marriages, and other challenges.

Perhaps one of the reasons this “last half” of life has interested me is the fact that I have seen many deaths over the past year, including many deaths of young people, who might not have found a way to truly engage the “last half” of their lives. These people include the children of several friends, my own daughter, the children of several men that are current patients, three cousins, three in-laws, and one patient who wrote three blogs about his life with me as his amanuensis. This man, 75 when he died, often said to me, “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I grow up.” Now he doesn’t have to worry, but I think he really wanted to find some meaning to the “last half” of his life but never did. These many deaths have only been aggravated by the “war” that I spoke of in a previous blog (biological, political, and cultural war) in the world together with the 550,000 people who have died of Covid and the millions who have been damaged in some way by the war. All of this has given me the opportunity to look at the “last half” of the lives of these men as well as the last half of my own life.  Truly looking at this last half takes an honest look at what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen in life.

Honestly looking at the future

The theme with all these men is this: what can I do in the future that will be meaningful? Perhaps, what can I do that will be of lasting value? Perhaps also, what can I do that will be of value to the world? Unfortunately, but understandably, these men want to bring all the past into the future. They want to bring along all the good of the past, leave all the bad, and have more good in the future. You can’t have all three, and this fact is difficult for every one of these men. Simply put, you can’t bring all the past into the future.

Examples:

  • One man wants to stay married even though his wife says that she doesn’t like him, never has, and she is seemingly very happy without him
  • One man wants to continue to make $100,000 but in a new profession that will barely give him half of that amount
  • One man wants to find a way to continue to love his former wife in the same way he always has even though his current female relationship is far superior to his former marriage
  • One man wants to stay living with his wife primarily so he can have an “intact family” even though he doesn’t love her, and possibly never has
  • One man wants to have some kind of magic that will eliminate the debt that he has acquired over many years
  • One man wants to get back with the woman who just might have the most important woman in his life even though she says that is impossible
  • One man wants to continue to engage in ideational figuring out new ways of looking at life although he never seems to be able to put anything to real practice.
  • One man wants to be able to drink as much as he always had even though his drinking has certainly damaged his marriage and possibly his life
  • Another man wants to continue to smoke pot as a primary means of coping with life
  • Many men want the people in their lives to understand the psychological principles that they have learned without these people going through the rigors of years of therapy that they have gone through

Slowly and painfully, men often have to learn to let go of much of the past, many sad and challenging things like mistakes of relationships, school, and work. Just as often men have to let go of the good things that were a part of the “first half of their lives” because these good things are no longer available. The poem Desiderata said it this way: take kindly the counsel of years gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” But what do we need to surrender? And what can I expect positively out of a good perspective of the second half of life?

Surrendering and expecting

If I am to truly face the future and seek to find meaning and make meaning in life, I have to give up so much of what “the first half” of life has been. Then I need to focus on what I can do, how I do it, and why I do it.

Primarily, what has to be surrendered is fear, namely:

  • Fear of mistakes
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of rejection
  • Fear of correction
  • Fear of being alone
  • Fear of being ill or dying
  • Any other fear

Secondly, you have to surrender some expectations:

  • Of visible success
  • Of appreciation
  • Of recognition
  • Of money

But you can expect

  • An increasing realization that you are doing something for you, for other people, and for the world all at the same time
  • Being more truthful, first to yourself, and then to others
  • Continuing to get better at thinking, feeling, and doing
  • Finding people who share your interest in doing something meaningful
  • The freedom that a fear-free life gives you
  • Success in doing something meaningful
  • A lasting purpose in the days, years, or decades you have to live
  • Recognition of your work by some people

There are many people, at least so it seems, that do not need to look at the “last half” of life.

A good life in the past leading to a good life in the future

I know of several men who are quite pleased to be retired. One of them spends a good deal of time golfing, another a good deal of time water-skiing, with both of these activities being spent with other people. I can only surmise that there are many people who are snow birds in order to live their remaining lives in parts south, at least one in Costa Rica and many in Florida. I see Facebook posts by some of these men who are very content to philosophize, share pictures, tell stories, tell jokes, remind me of things in the 50’s, enjoy the spring flowers, and spend time with their grandchildren. I am happy for these men. Most of them have lived honorable, productive, and honest lives and now are using the fruits of their labor. While I appreciate their pleasant retirement, such is not my lot in life, so it seems. I look favorably at the past but look even more favorably at the present and the future.

Personal

So, what, you may ask, is my second half of life? The answer, quite simply, is teaching, namely teaching people what I have learned over these 77 years of life, and more specifically what I have learned over the 55 years of my professional career. The forms that this “teaching” seem to be taking is in writing, conducting seminars, and doing meaningful therapy. I have finished with several elements of therapy that constituted as much as half of my working years, namely psychotherapy with children, seeing people who are chronically ill, whether with mental illness or physical illness, doing evaluations to determine if someone is “disabled,” and very possibly severely limiting evaluations in general. My focus now, aside from reading, writing, and teaching, is to work with people in therapy who are truly ready to enter the second half of their lives. There are many people who think about such things, feel about such things, and dream about such things, but I think I can be of more value to the world helping people who are willing to step out of the past, into the present, and towards the future. This is somewhat of a painful change that I have been making in my own “second half” of life, but it yet seems right to do.

Different Kinds of “I’m Sorry”

Ron Johnson appreciation, communication, emotional maturity, Feelings, grief, relationships, Self-Awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

“I’m sorry:” a very important statement. Very, very important. Most people should be able to express these words at least once a day, and possibly several times a day. But what does “I’m sorry” mean, or more accurately what can it mean? For some reason “I’m sorry” has fallen into disuse in America, and perhaps it was never part of our character the way it seems to be in most every other culture. There are many aspects of “I’m sorry” that I would like to tackle in this humble piece, but let’s start with different kinds of “I’m Sorry.”

Different Kinds of “I’m Sorry”

I have continued to put “I’m sorry” in quotation marks because “I’m sorry” does not entirely equate with apology, nor should it. There are at least the following meanings of the expression “I’m sorry:”

  • Apology. When I apologize for something, this is a personal acknowledgement that I have failed in some action, although this apology could also be for some inaction on my part, namely something I have said, something I have done, something I have failed to say, or something I have failed to do.
  • Shared grief. This is an occurrence where I express this statement to someone with whom I share the grief that the person is experiencing. I may have caused this grief or the grief may have come from another source.
  • Disingenuous statement. This occurs when someone says “I’m sorry” with an important caveat…BUT. Hence, this is the frequently occurring, “I’m sorry but…,” then to be filled with some kind of justification or disregard.

Apologies

It is an extremely important element in human-to-human interaction, to be able to apologize when one has erred in what s/he did or said (or as noted, when one has erred in failing to say or do something). For example, it is important to say “I’m sorry” when you might have:

  • Stepped in front of someone in line, probably by accident
  • Failed to remember an occasion that was important to the other person, while it might not have been important to you. Likewise, you might be late for a dinner engagement even though you are not a person known for being prompt.
  • Making a statement that was offensive to someone, perhaps by using a swear word that is common to you and to your community but not common to your friend.
  • Bumping into the car in front of you.
  • Raising your voice in a discussion that led to an argument rather than a debate
  • Failing to express yourself when you had an important opinion that might have served the community but caused you to be disliked by someone
  • Disregarding someone’s preferred way of table manners because you didn’t think that such things were important.

Most of the time I have offended, hurt, or harmed someone, I have done this unintentionally.

I didn’t mean to do it

Of course, you didn’t mean to do it. You offended someone in some way, such as the ways I have noted above unintentionally, which is a very important fact. Once you get this concept in your mind, namely that you didn’t mean to hurt someone, you will have achieved the first and most important element in being able to apologize.

I often note that the Hebrew Scriptures’ book of Leviticus is comprised of about 450 “rules” of life. Notably, every one of these rules has to do with “sin,” but more importantly for our purposes, every one of these rules begins with, “If you sin by…. (fill in the blank) unintentionally, you must make amends for this sin by….” For instance, if you sin by sleeping with your neighbor’s wife, you must make amends in some way….  The essence of this matter of sin and the result is twofold: you have caused some harm to someone, and you need to make amends for this harm in some way. Most importantly, however, these “sins” (we do not have time to unpack this interesting biblical word) are all unintentional…with the exception of one “sin”: intentional sin. For all these 400-some sins, Leviticus (Actually God speaking in Leviticus) suggests that there are ways for atonement or reparation. I believe all of these “sins” are ones what involve offense brought to another person in some way. But there is one “sin” that is quite different: “If anyone sins intentionally…,” the situation is quite different. Such a person is to be thrown out of the community. Now, while I might not quite understand or even agree with throwing someone out of the community, whatever community that might be, it is interesting to me that all but one of these 400-some sins are unintentional. I believe this is the case for most things we do that offend, hurt, or harm other people: we unintentionally bring harm to someone. Sadly, I can recall scores, if not hundreds, of times when I have brought offense to people over my nearly 77 years of life. You might read my blog of a few years ago on my regrets for some examples of my errors in life, which are many.

The times when people intentionally hurt one another are almost always in reaction to having been hurt. I wrote a blog entitled, “Hurt People Hurt People,” borrowing the title for a book published 30 years ago. When someone intentionally says or does something to hurt or harm the other person, these are times when one has been hurt her/himself and has had a kneejerk reaction to “hurt back,” usually not knowing that the original person who inflicted hurt on you did not hurt you intentionally. So I won’t waste much time with this intentional kind of hurt, which should result in an apology with the words, “I’m sorry.” When we hurt someone who has hurt us, this is a reaction of anger coming from having been hurt, much of our (unintentionally) hurting someone comes from fear. These are tough situations that we all find ourselves in our human relationships. It behooves us to realize that when we hurt someone intentionally, it is almost always in reaction to having been hurt. Much more frequently, however, we have hurt someone out of naiveté or ignorance.

Hurt inflicted out of naiveté or ignorance

The mistakes of our youth should largely be classified as those of naiveté (or ignorance), feeling, “I just didn’t know that if I said a certain thing, I would hurt or offend someone.” Growing up should include maturity in understanding the effect of what I say or do. Extraverts like me can look at the things we said that were hurtful that we shouldn’t have said, whereas introverts more likely will see things that they should have said that could have been helpful. Doers like me will see things that we shouldn’t have done, whereas dreamers will see things that they should have done. I shouldn’t have got married (the first time). Several people I know would say that they should have got married. These failures of youth are understandable and forgivable but some such mistakes have lifelong results. I know a lot more people who shouldn’t have got married than I do people who should have got married.

It’s not only young people who say or do things that hurt someone else. We do that all the time. Deb and I devoted an entire chapter in our recent book to the central concept of hurt. If we really knew how often we hurt people, we would all be a lot more careful if what we say or do, but then we wouldn’t be human if we watched everything that carefully. As noted above, introverts tend to watch so carefully what they say, that their errors are usually in not saying what they feel. This whole matter of our hurting one another frequently and being hurt just as frequently is not to be taken too lightly. We just need to be able to see that we have unintentionally hurt someone and be ready to say so. This does not mean we go around being apologetic all the time, but rather being able to simply see what something that was said or done (or failed to be said or failed to be done) out of naiveté needs to be seen, understood, and apologized for. But it is hard to do so.

Why is it hard to apologize?                                                                     

I didn’t mean to do it. This is the whole matter of hurt being unintentional for the most part. I often say to patients, “Of course, you didn’t mean to hurt her, but you did, and you need to apologize.” Not many men take kindly to this advice.

She shouldn’t be hurt by what I said. Again, you didn’t mean to hurt her, but you did, and the most important emotional element is not what you said, meant to say, or thought you said, but what she felt.

I feel ashamed of having hurt someone. This is the largest part of the difficulty in apologizing and it exists in every person I have ever met. The shame level that exists in most people in tragic, and it comes out when we are “caught” in some way, very often caught in having hurt someone. I don’t have time to deal with the shame element more here, but you might look up the blog on shame and guilt.

I am afraid. The essence of shame is being afraid, namely being afraid of being wrong or being criticized. Unfortunately, there is a terrible fear in most people of being wrong, of making mistakes, or being criticized. True maturity, especially emotional maturity, is displayed with someone being unafraid of mistakes or criticism. I don’t know anyone who has reached this level of emotional maturity…including myself.

The other person doesn’t deal well with it. While some people graciously accept an apology, there is an odd phenomenon that occurs with the offended party when the offender offers an apology: they then say all the other things that the offender has done. So, if you apologize to someone, be prepared for an onslaught of criticism of all your other mistakes in life.

You said or did the right thing. This is real important. There are times when you actually say or do the right thing, but this right thing still hurts your friend. This phenomenon is clear with children whom we chastise, limit, or punish but then feel sad because we know that our child is suffering. This having done or said the right thing that hurts someone is not limited to children. Good leaders, whether professional, familial, or professional, need to challenge, hence criticize from time to time. It behooves a good leader to know that however true the challenge is, the person hearing the challenge will be hurt. And if you’re a leader, you need to say “I’m sorry” to them. This brings me to the second kind of “I’m sorry:” shared grief.

“I’m sorry” as an expression of shared grief

This may be the most important of all “I’m sorry” statements, but it is the hardest to grasp, especially in some circumstances. It is sometimes easy to share grief, sometimes difficult, and sometimes very paradoxical. If done honorably, honestly, and clearly, it can be one of the most profound interpersonal experiences that we can have.

Sometimes easy: in a previous blog I related the several experiences of having someone share the grief that Deb and I experienced after the death of our daughter. Some of these experiences were simple, like the Starbuck’s barista hearing from Deb of our loss immediately coming the counter and giving a Deb a hug…along with a free espresso, or the many simple expressions of grief that people have shared with me over the past 15 months, sometimes after these 15 months have passed because I hadn’t had the chance of seeing someone for that period of time. Other expressions of shared grief have been quite profound like the woman we met by chance at the headwaters of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota, the woman we met by chance at the top of the learning tower of Pisa in Italy, or the woman we met by chance not far from our up north cabin on a hike that Krissie, her kids, and we used to take. In all of these circumstances, when we made a simple comment about our loss, these previously unknown women cried, hugged us, and said those precious words, “I’m so sorry.” I hope you have experienced this kind of shared grief, whether on the giving or the receiving side. It is easy to give and it is easy to receive…but not always.

Sometimes difficult.

It is often difficult for people to share grief because they simply do not know what to say. Some people say too much while others say nothing. Our “up north” neighbor heard of our loss while we happened to pass each other on the lake we share. This woman must have said, “I don’t know what to say” a dozen times within minutes of hearing of our loss. Interestingly, she shared how she had lost a young child 40 years previously. Another person whom I know quite well is yet unable to say much of anything because he also lost a son, not six months before Krissie died. His grief is so great that he has a hard time even mentioning our daughter by name, much less the name of his son. It was difficult for a new patient I saw just a few months ago, and he said nothing when I made reference to “loss” in the context of my hearing of his losses in life. Later, he told me that he “didn’t know what to say” because he didn’t want to sound disingenuous. He later said, quite simply, that he has never been particularly good at expressing any emotion aside from anger, a plague that many men suffer. The difficulty that people have with saying “I’m sorry,” whether for someone’s loss like our recent loss, or because they have causes some hurt, is often due to a combination of not having emotional words at their disposal, but more often due to their own lack of personal emotional groundedness. Personal groundedness is hallmarked primarily by knowing how you feel, expressing these feelings when appropriate to do so, and frequently knowing the feelings but wisely keeping the feelings to oneself out of propriety. Simply put, one can express shared grief if one knows and values what he/she feels. If this is the case, one can share the love of shared grief without hesitation. Sadly, many people do not have this personal security.

Sharing grief that is paradoxical

This is one of the most important times that we can share grief but it is rarely experienced because of its very paradoxical nature and because it takes an immense amount of personal security. Sharing grief with someone who has suffered some kind of loss is easy if you can easily find some kind of human connectedness, but it very difficult to share grief with someone who has suffered a loss that you think is a good thing. It is hard to share the grief that I child has when you discipline him or her. I just talked to the parents of a child for whom I did a psychological evaluation. One of my suggestions was to replace the shame-inducing rhetorical questions, like “what’s wrong with you” with statements of being disappointed. One of these parents then said, but our child gets so hurt and sad when you say that you are disappointed. Better that you and your child feel “disappointed,” which is tantamount to feeling sad, then you’re being angry and your child feeling ashamed.

Hard as it is to share grief with a child that is necessary, it is ten times harder to share grief with an adult who has suffered some kind of loss that you think is good for him or her. This is hard to explain so allow me to give you an example. Just yesterday I heard from a good friend of mine with whom I share just three years of life, namely those of being in the same fraternity house in college. I didn’t see Jack for more than 40 years until he somehow found me on LinkedIn about 10 years ago, leading to occasional get-togethers and a rare time playing golf. It was easy to reconnect with Jack because we share much the same faith (while not exactly) and are both outgoing and expressive. It was hard for Jack to hear that I intended to vote for Hillary four years ago and even harder for him to hear that I intended to vote for Biden this year. Jack is part of the 70 some percent of evangelical Christians who vote for Republicans regardless of anything else aside from their political persuasion. Jack and I have had some forthright, but challenging email connections over the past few months due to the huge emotionality in the country over the recent election. His most recent email expressed his dismay over Trump’s loss. I found it a challenge, but also honest for me to tell him that I was “sorry” for his loss and shared his grief. I must admit I had some consternation over saying “I’m sorry” to Jack because I was so relieved that Trump did not get reelected, but I acknowledged my own joy at this defeat privately to myself while also feeling a genuine love for Jack and feeling compelled to share his grief. When I told Deb what I had written to Jack, she was a bit concerned how that might seem that I was sad that Biden won, which I most certainly was not. I suggested that this was an example of paradoxical sharing of grief. I could feel joyful that Biden won on the one hand, while on the other feel great sorrow with my good friend for his having to put up a forthcoming Biden presidency.

I do not always act or speak so generously, but why would I not do so? Only if I was unable to free myself from my own self-interest and be more interested in my friend. Consider this most difficult situation, this paradoxical situation, where you are glad that something happened, but feel a shared sorrow for someone who feels quite distressed about the same event. This can seem ingenuous, but it is not. There is, however, a truly ingenuous “I’m sorry.”

Ingenuous “I’m sorry.”

The key identifying words to ingenuous apologies are “Well” and “but.” Let me explain. An ingenuous expression of “I’m sorry” begins with one word soon to be followed by the other, e.g., “Well, I’m sorry, but….” Do you know what I mean? This is the expression that many people, you included, I included, have said when we are not sorry at all. Rather, we use “I’m sorry” meaning quite the opposite. Had I been ingenuous with Jack, I could have said, “Well, Jack, I’m sorry but Trump is an idiot.” I have said such things, but happily many years ago, and now I am ashamed for that must egregious indiscretion and lack of love. I won’t now to choose to spend much time with ingenuous expressions except to note that they also originate from one’s lack of genuine self-esteem and certainly a lack of an ability to reach beyond one’s own feelings to understand the other person. With my experience with Jack, I can reach into my recovering Republican nature and see much good in conservative politics, but more importantly, my love for Jack is more important than my feeling of joy with Biden’s victory.

I leave you with the suggestion that you consider saying “I’m sorry” in the more positive ways and feel the joy that comes from honest apologies and shared griefs. By the way, you don’t actually have to say these exact words, I’m sorry. You might prefer “my bad,” which is all the more contemporary, the mea culpa that is classic, or other cognates of the feelings that occur when someone is hurt, mistaken, or criticized,