Asking forgiveness- I hate apologizing

It is only a short time prior to the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It is a time of reflection and struggle for me. Not that this should surprise any of the 7 regular readers here as I tend to repeat myself.

One of the things that many people do is engage in contacting friends and family to ask them to forgive them if they have done anything to insult them. I find that this is hard for me on a number of levels. Let's begin with the blogging community first.

I don't fault other bloggers for posting an apology to a large group of people. Religion is a personal thing. But I also find that the blogging is too impersonal for me. For someone like myself to do that is really hard. I simply find apologizing difficult and do not want to offer it without some kind of personal touch. I figure if I am going to do it, I might as well try and give it my best shot.

Not to mention that the people who really know me and receive these apologies also know that this is not something that I do well or often and in theory should appreciate it more. Yes, that is right, if I am going to do it I want people to appreciate the effort.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not like doing it and it is very hard for me.

To me the biggest question of the day is one that can only be answered by individuals. And that is, did you try and be a better person, did you work hard to improve yourself and did you take the time to sit in the silence and look inside.

If you can say yes to these questions you can also make your own judgement and determine whether you feel comfortable with your actions. Tonight I will spend quiet time in the late evening and I will think about the entire year and try and consider what I did and where life is taking me.

I enjoy this kind of quiet reflection and find it to be very relaxing. And then tomorrow I will wake up and try to ignore the sweet aromas wafting through my neighborhood and focus on what it is I want to accomplish. And as I daven in shul I will pull my tallis over my head and create my own "cone of silence" so that even though I am part of the community I can focus that much more closely.

I wish everyone a very easy fast and am looking forward to a very exciting new year. G'mar Tov.

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