I generally agree with that assessment. Forgive me, bella, I’m about to go on a long and barely related ramble, because this dilemma reminds me of something that I always think about this time of year.

When I used to work at a mediation clinic, so often a party who felt “wronged” insisted that nothing was required from the other party but an admission or an apology. Acknowledgment, we were told time and time again in our training, is more important to people than anything else in a conflict. People need to know they have been heard.

At the same time, here’s the reality of what often occurred: on those occasions when someone else was willing to come right out and say, “Yep, you’re right. I’m wrong. I fucked up. I’m sorry,” the party who should have at that point been perfectly satisfied (right?) was . . . not satisfied. I got to know that look so well. Everyone would be shaking hands and saying their goodbyes, and the “wronged” party, having received that longed-for acknowledgment, would have a slightly disoriented air. It was slowly dawning on him, you see, that nothing felt different or was different. He (or she) hadn’t been restored to whatever emotional status quo he had been hoping for. I would see the inevitable furrow in the brow that indicated the inkling of realization: “Now what?”

Sometimes I would make follow-up calls only to learn that the “wronged” party was feeling worse since the resolution of the dispute. People get so focused on redressing the wrongs in their lives. It becomes their motivation, their goal; they imagine how great everything would be if only this bad thing had never happened, and they want someone else to admit how great everything would have been, too. And to take responsibility for it. But when that goal is reached, the structure of their entire life suddenly simply . . . disappears.

Everyone has their own way of coping, of course, and for some people getting that apology or that acknowledgment was a valuable step in their progress toward accepting a situation. A step, though — never an end in itself.

Harvey needs to focus in the future a bit more… for my sake.