Apologies. They can really powerful when filled with the right emotion and coming from a place of sincerity. However, when done out of place of obligation then I feel that they lose that sincerity. Such instances are quite common nowadays where people simply do them because its expected in certain circumstances. The best examples, and probably the most common, are those of celebrities or well known figures who say something offensive and apologise after. Most of the time, they aren’t heartfelt apologies, just a script written by their PR assistant who was not related to the incident in anyway. When your apologies are more about saving your own ass as opposed to the person it is directed towards then, that’s not a sincere place. In my opinion anyway. Additionally we see the same things with governments when it comes to national incidents like terrorism (yeah, I went there.) They’ll apologise to families for their loss and promise to bring progress by using this event as catalyst of motivation. That’s all very nice; but surely what would speak volumes to the public is if you actually helped to address some of the widespread issues that contribute to problems like extremism. Even if not able to -although I don’t see why not- governments tend to slash the funding of many charities in the third sector essentially trying to do just that. It’s very annoying.

The utterance of an apology doesn’t suddenly make things better and in cases when you’re in the wrong, actions definitely speak louder than words. Being sorry, therefore becomes one of those complicated things like love which are twofold; words and action. The former only scratches the surface and I think we need to remember that before we applaud and worship those in the public eye that have the decency to actually say it.