I know that there is a book by this name. Though I have not read the book, I guess I can relate to what it has to say. I speak from experience, both mine and others’ around me.

I have seen paradigm shifts when an apology has been tendered. People who have been hurt when we accidentally hit them no longer feel the pain. People who have been aggrieved no longer feel the hurt when we go and say sorry. A simple mail or a telephone call with sorry as a message can convert an enemy into friend. The apology has to be genuine. But, sometimes, I won’t mind using apology to make up, even when I really don’t feel genuinely apologetic. The reasons are simple – the satisfaction and benefits of making up and being able to make someone else happy.

If happiness was as simple as tendering an apology away, why is there so much of agony, so many disputes, so many arguments, so much of rupture of hearts and feelings. People call it ego (as it is usually understood). But it is usually a false sense of pride.

The person cannot go and apologize because he thinks that the other person will think that he has accepted his mistake and is shameful of what he has done/said and thus can be braded an awful person. But, what actually would happen is that the person to whom apology has been tendered starts feeling guilty about having been aggrieved in the first place (he will start searching for reasons why he felt aggrieved) and not himself having initiated the process of rapprochement. I don’t say this will happen in 100 per cent of the cases, but generally this is what will happen.

In interpersonal relations, there is no more powerful method to resolve strain in relations than apologize. The matter about which the conflict had started will no longer be relevant or even remembered.