Wiping the Slate Clean

Anger is no excuse for attempting to expunge a wrong. Life and love don’t work the way. As we blow our stacks, however ‘calmly’ we do it, we set up relational complications that can only be set right through the appropriate language of comprehensive apology.

People on the receiving end of angry reactions feel cornered; optionless.

We do well to reverse these prospects for them.

Wiping the slate clean by the angry protagonist is, however, as easy as it is humbling — every bad word and action, plus the reason for the outburst, rescinded.

Wiping the slate clean, for the person angered, is about relinquishing the point of annoyance — then the weight of the apology can be felt by the person offended.

Wiping the slate clean is nothing if not full situational remorse; the surrender of the will for any upper hand.

When the slate’s wiped clean, it’s swift and easy — clean as a paring knife through warmed butter. And healing is at once initiated.

It’s the only genuine answer to anger; as a reaction post-event. Angry reactions are usually regretful and hardly worth the investment of emotion. In fact, they get us to backwards-land so quickly we’d otherwise reckon ourselves in a spin.

Only once all advantage is rescinded can life — in the context of the relationship — begin again. Without it, relational confidence is questionable and progress, halted.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.