How Japanese apology changed my whole mindset

I’m not sure if this relates to Zen, but I wanted to share it anyway because it helped me a lot.

I was thinking recently about how I’ve changed after living in Japan for 8 years.

There are a lot of small things, but perhaps the biggest change is the way I apologize, which has actually impacted my entire mindset.

It all has to do with language.

In Japanese, one of the strongest ways to apologize is with the phrase 申し訳ございません (moushi-wake gozaimasen) which literally translates to “I have no excuse”.

I use this phrase every single day at work, for things big and small.

“I have no excuse” is pretty much the opposite of how I used to apologize.

Especially when I lived in the states, I would never have apologized without giving an excuse:

“I’m so sorry for being late! There was really bad traffic on the I5.”

“I’m sorry for messing up the task you assigned. The directions were really poorly written and difficult to understand.”

“I’m sorry for hurting your feelings. I thought you would get the joke since we both watched that show together.”

I’ve come to realize that an apology means much more (to the person I'm apologizing to and myself) if I take full responsibility for what I did.

Now I realize that the best apology is to say “I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I’ll change XYZ next time so it doesn’t happen again” and leave it at that.

“I have no excuse” was a difficult thing to say at first, but I feel like it has actually given me more power over my life.

Making excuses just takes away from my agency and leaves me powerless to external forces.

Instead, I now try to take responsibility for everything—the good and the bad.

I’m not sure if I’m doing a good job of explaining myself, but I think that a lot of people like me could benefit simply from apologizing by saying “I have no excuse”.

Warm wishes,

Chris