Feeling Badly

 When apologizing to someone, or making an amends, we need to face our bad feelings about the wrong we did.  Do we feel badly because of the harm we did to other person, or because we feel we should have done better behavior, or been a better person.  If we wish we had been better, that is a form of false pride. Plus, we are tepid about the harm done to the other person.  Such an apology is all about oneself feeling better and not facing the fact that we were rather rotten with shortcomings such as selfishness.  The action we did to the other person is in the past.  It cannot be changed though apology is called for.  But our false pride, our avoidance of self, is all in the present.  We make amends not so much to feel better, as to face what mess is still within us that needs attention.