Originally my notes in Facebook with the same title....
I guess everybody knows how to apologize. I guess everybody realizes that they have mistakes with someone. And lastly, I guess everybody really understands that when you have mistakes with someone, you need to apologize.
But why did it is really hard to apologize?
The word apologize or sorry are indeed the most expensive words in this world. Why? Cuz, everybody tries to protect their dignity. They feel that saying such a word as sorry would harm their dignity, that it means they are wrong and they are not that cheap to say something like sorry.
Well, it is not true, I guess. Since the easier you say sorry, the higher you are than others.
I'd like to use purchasing power parity theorem for this case. Purchasing power parity is a theorem which determines exchange rate of a currency by calculating its purchasing power on spesific good. For instance, we use BigMac (just like people do to explain PPP) to determine rupiah against dollar. In USA, one BigMac is (let's say) 3 Dollar and in Indonesia, BigMac is 30.000 Rupiah. It means that, 3 Dollar is 30.000 rupiah or the exchange rate of Rupiah against Dollar is 10.000Rp/$. Dollar is stronger than Rupiah.
Now, why don't we try to apply this on the goods of apologizing such as sorry or apologize. Roy, with his dignity, can easily say sorry for his mistakes. While, Yor, also with his dignity, rarely apologize for his mistakes. It means that with Roy's dignity, he can buy more apologizing words while Yor can only buy few. Roy's dignity is stronger than Yor's in terms of Purchasing Power Parity. Then, we can conclude that Roy's dignity is higher since he can say apologize easily.
See, apologizing doesn't harm your dignity, it values you dignity higher. Saying sorry is not harmful. It makes you a better man in front of any others since you have higher exchange rate of dignity.
So, why do you bother to apologize?