Recently I watched a very heartwarming movie "Wonder Boy", which tells the inspirational story of how a young boy with facial defects, Auggie, entered a normal school, regained his self-confidence and faced life positively.
The film is based on RJ Palacio's novel "Wonder", which was inspired by the author's guilt.
Palacio immediately took his son and left the scene. Afterwards, he realized that his actions had caused harm to the little girl and missed an opportunity for the child to receive "respect education".
With apologies to the girl, Palacio decides to record the unforgettable story and kindly replaces the protagonist with a boy.
In the movie, this shot is arranged on Auggie's classmate Jack. A few days before the start of school, the principal arranged for Jack to go back to school to lead his new classmate Auggie to familiarize himself with the school environment in advance.
Jack was reluctant in his heart. When his mother persuaded him, in addition to talking about the scholarship the principal gave him, more importantly, this classmate was the boy with the facial deformity who scared his younger brother to tears at the door of the ice cream shop last time.
Mom felt that she had offended the boy by taking her brother away without saying anything last time, and she had always felt guilty, so she hoped that Jack could treat him better.
Shakespeare wrote in Tat for Tat: "The best people are those who have made mistakes, and a person will often become better because of a small defect."
Indeed, everyone makes mistakes, and every mistake can be seen as an opportunity for self-improvement. Palacio made amends by writing an apology letter into a novel, and called on the whole society to pay attention to and respect these special groups. The German Chancellor's apology was to kneel in public to apologize.
On December 7, 1970, the then Federal German Chancellor Willy Brandt, when laying a wreath in front of the monument to the Jewish victims in Warsaw, suddenly knelt on the wet marble slab in front of the monument and prayed: "God. Forgive us, and may the afflicted soul find peace."
The one who knelt down was the German Chancellor alone, but the whole of Germany stood up.
Brandt's move moved thousands of Poles and made the presence of diplomats and journalists from all over the world unmoved. Facing the undead souls of six million Jews in Europe and the disaster that Nazi Germany brought to the world, most Germans have a strong sense of repentance and redemption.
In addition to the political declaration that "war will never be waged by Germany", the German government has successively compensated nearly 55 billion US dollars to the victims of Jews in Israel, Poland, France, Greece, Russia and other countries, while Siemens, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and other large companies also Jewish workers paid $5 billion in compensation.
Some of the descendants of Adolf Hitler's family even agreed not to marry and have children in this life, in order to fundamentally cut off the source of this sinful family.
Offending can be unintentional, but hurting others can be brutal.
Palacio imagined afterwards how much pressure his son's screams and cries would have caused the girl that day. In the movie, this psychological description is placed on Auggie's emotional breakdown on Halloween.
After a few months, Augie basically adjusted to school life, and even had a good friend Jack. Every year, Halloween is the happiest day for Auggie, because everyone wears a mask on this day, and he can be completely equal to other children.
But when Auggie ran to the school happily, he overheard Jack and his classmates talking about him behind his back, saying that being friends with him was just arranged by the principal, and other classmates said he was so ugly that he was suicidal. Auggie ran home crying, berating his mother aggrieved why he was so ugly.
The mother tried her best to soothe the injured child. This group of mother and son's dialogue instantly touched the tears of many viewers.
Everyone has a steelyard in their heart to know what is right and what is wrong, and this steelyard is the standard for measuring whether we should apologize.
An apology is healing for the offended, helping them regain their self-esteem and dignity, as well as their sense of self-worth. At the same time, it can also reduce the guilt in your heart, which can be described as a win-win situation.
In "The Power of Apology," the author tells of Newman's fear of not being able to stand by his friend's side when he needed help as a young man. Although the relationship between the two was still close afterwards, this incident became a thorn in Newman's heart, which has not been forgotten for many years.
It was not until 61 years later that Newman apologized to his friend and walked out of the shadow of hurting his friend. About two years later, his friend passed away. He was glad that he handed the letter of apology to his friend before he passed away, otherwise he would have a hard time in his life.
"Apologize", "forgive", reconcile with ourselves, and reconcile with the people around us, are compulsory courses in our life.
Researchers interviewed 100 dying people and asked them what is their greatest regret in life? It turns out that the biggest regret is not what you did, but what you didn't do.
In life, it is inevitable that you will hurt some people because of your inappropriate words and deeds. Choosing to apologize in time will be your wisest choice. Palacio wrote an apology letter into a novel, I believe you have your own way of apology.
View more about Wonder reviews
