I recently visited with a friend. He had just come from work in a cafe.
I asked: ‘If you went there for coffee, you used a mug, right? . . . no disposable cup?
He sheepishly replied, “No, I used a disposable cup.” Sorry.”
People keep apologizing to me for the pollution. I said, ‘Don’t apologize to me. It hardly affects me. That’s true, but other people even more so.”
My questions to you, the reader, especially if you have apologized about the pollution:
Why apologize? It hardly bothers me.
Should someone apologize? Do people who apologize to me believe they did something that deserves an apology? If, why don’t they do it? Why do something you think is wrong if you can’t do it without problems. In this case he could have brought his own container to the cafe or asked for a mug.
Who should they apologize to? Who is injured by pollution? Why don’t you find them and apologize?
Why does it irritate me so much that they apologize to me? I leave this question as an exercise to the reader, but the gist is that they are personalizing an issue for me that has nothing to do with me. They could improve their lives, but instead they project judgment onto me because they feel guilty, but that’s their conscience, not me.
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