Why You Shouldn't Always Apologize for Your Mistakes

Most honest people want to make amends once they have realized they have made a mistake and that is a positive trait to have. But, it is not always that cut and dried so to speak. There are people out there who will manipulate your positive attributes and it then will leave you reeling as to why you always feel like your at fault or that there is some imbalance in the relationship. It could also be a stranger whom you had just bumped into or even thought that you bumped into and yet you find they just pick pocketed you! In any situation that you are quick to apologize for; give yourself a pause or even a 24 hour pause if you can. You could be setting up a bad pattern of being the doormat in your relationships.

Not all mistakes require an apology. Some mistakes are not just one persons fault and some mistakes that were truly nonbiased do not require someone be apologetic for their actions or the events. You may want to talk to the other people involved, but that by no means states that you have to apologize.

The action or behavior may not have affected anyone and the person who wants you to apologize is just trying to get some extra attention or kudos when they didn't really deserve it.

There are times when we want to take the fall for someone else; even though it is not our place to do so. This type of behavior starts to become enabling to the person at fault and the apologies are not well intentioned because we don't own them, we are intercepting them.

Sometimes a mistake is just that a mis-take, something that we thought we had right and in the end it turned out to be the wrong move. This is when someone who is manipulating will let you take on shame and blame for something when they know that the real truth is not that black and white.

In the end, it requires that you use some more judgment before you just jump to apologize if you have made a mistake; this may be learned behavior and it may not serve you best in the long run. Now, of course, if you know for sure that you made a mistake and unnecessarily hurt someone or hurt their feelings, by all means apologize promptly it is the right thing to do.