I FOUND IT DIFFICULT TO SAY I WAS SORRY

When I was ten years old, I was given a pocket-knife for my birthday, it being the In Thing in those days. To test its sharpness, I went to a field belonging to an elderly lady, and sliced some bark off one of her trees. I could have done this to one of ours, of course, but I was smart enough not to use one of our trees as "sharpness tester" because I would have been a suspect with my new knife, and I knew the consequences that would have swiftly come my way.

Unbeknown to me, however, two of the neighbour’s kids observed me testing my knife, and reported my activity to the schoolteacher. The following day, I was hauled before him in front of the class and was sternly asked to explain.

I could see that it was useless to deny the bark-slicing job, there were two witnesses against me, so I pleaded guilty. The Judge (my teacher) said to me, "This is what you must do...

"You must go and seal the wounds of that tree with wax, and then bandage it. Then you must go to the old lady and apologise, and say you are sorry. I’ll give you one day to fix the tree and one week to apologise."

Looking at me sternly, he continued, "If you have not accomplished this, I shall bring the matter to the attention of your parents." In those days, parents and teachers were powerful forces, for whom one had great respect. (If only it were still like that today!)

So, after school, I quietly went about my task and fixed up the tree I’d damaged. Then the hardest bit, saying sorry. I made countless attempts to go to the lady and say I was sorry, but I got no further than her front door, with my finger bent, ready to knock. But each time, I could not muster the courage to move my hand and knock on the door, so I went away, intending to try again later.

The seven-day deadline was approaching rapidly, and on the seventh day, finally, with a tremendous mental effort, and realising that I had no other choice, I at last mustered enough courage to knock at the lady’s front door. The lady opened it herself and I admitted to damaging one of her trees, and said that I had fixed it up and that I was sorry. The lady smiled and thanked me for letting her know and that it was nice of me to say I was sorry. I left with a good feeling of having done the right thing and, as a reward, a tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders.

The moral of this story is not only did I learn a valuable lesson, but I swore to myself that I’d never get myself in a situation where I would be required to say I’m sorry. The lesson taught me to think things through, always asking myself if I would I have to say I was sorry after saying or doing something. Only after careful weighing of every angle of what I was considering doing or saying, would I go ahead to carry it out, and this principle is still with me today.
   

- Werner Schmidlin 
Yorkeys Knob, Queensland, Australia.