After much deliberation and almost combining challenges I have selected the following challenge for March:
“To list and act appropriately towards all the people to whom you owe apologies.
I am not challenging you to write letters to every single person you owe apologies to, in some cases this may be inappropriate, and re-approaching someone you have hurt in the past, may be upsetting for them again. I trust you to have a degree of discretion about who you choose to apologise to. I would like you to think of and write down, everyone you may have upset, hurt, wronged, stolen from, angered or done other activity that could warrant an apology, however great or small, and to write these down, along with dates, names, activities etc, that can be remembered, in a fashion as to which you see appropriate. These needn’t be exhibited in their entirety, again, discretion would be a necessity. Some form of public statement should be acknowledged for every wrong-doing/occasion; the published details of the wrongdoings are at your discretion. The apologies must not state that they have come from a challenge, or that I have told you to do this. The apologies you do make, if any, must be genuine and honest.
This might be quite a horrible thing to have to do. So I will add one additional condition: that you can stop thinking about this if you start to feel uncomfortably anxious or guilty. While it might be interesting to work through times like these, I think it is important that you have the option to stop when you need it.
Challenged by Tom Duggan”
I am rather hoping that I haven’t already gone against the challenge by announcing it. I do think however that this references the apologies them selves as not stating they came from a challenge.
This challenge has to be the most moral to date. I also think that my teenage self will have a lot to answer for in, but discretion is imperative.
I almost combined this challenge with one from my next door neighbour which would see me performing at bus stops every Monday and Wednesday lunch time. I found this challenge interesting, and thought the two could work well together, however have since realised its not really appropriate to combine challenges, and I found the challenge interesting and not necessarily challenging.
Another challenge I pondered was to create a new set of YBA’s, for me this challenge had potential but wasn’t necessarily in-depth-ly challenging, although it really depends on interpretation.
So my logic for choosing this challenge rests on several levels. The first that giving an apology is actually a challenge in its self, and apologies are some what hard to come by because of this, and in depth apologies even more so. The second reason is that to declare these apologies in public shows what kind of a person you are or have been, and that isn’t always pretty. My final reason is that in my older age (not that old I may add) I attempt in every way to be honest, and if apologies are to be made they are likely to be trivial. This is not the same for my teenage years where there is probably the majority of apologising to be done.
