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January 9, 2008

Sometimes we fail to remember something and feel guilty

By Doug Herman The Tribune Star Wed Jan 09, 2008, 08:52 PM EST

TERRE HAUTE —

Guilt and memory failure

Some people regard memory as an open or shut case.

We either remember or don’t remember.

For other people, memory involves three categories: remembering, not remembering, or not being sure whether we remember.

However, we also have feelings about our capability to remember something. Sometimes we fail to remember and laugh about it.

Other times we fail to remember and feel guilty about our failure (or at least we seem to be guilty).

This column considers three issues about guilt when we forget.

We will examine guilt for forgetting someone’s name, forgetting an appointment with someone, and when people fake feeling guilty for forgetting.

Failing to remember someone’s name

Some people believe that a person’s name is the sound he or she most enjoys hearing. This is what Dale Carnegie believed. This seems like a stretch to me. For example, I believe that the most precious sound is “here is the money I owe you.” Seriously, forgetting someone’s name is the memory failure that most adults find most annoying because guilt may be involved.

The failure to recall someone’s name can make this person feel that we do not respect them or care for them.

This is especially true if the name is for someone we are close to. For example, significant others get steamed if we do not recall their name. Worse yet, significant others get more than steamed if we call them by some other name than their own.

However, a few years ago, a friend of mine pointed out that there are much worse memory failures than forgetting names.

Forgetting to do something we promised to do for someone may convey regard as low or lower than forgetting someone’s name.

Worse than forgetting a name, people may forget who someone else is.

Perhaps forgetting a person’s identity conveys very low regard or lack of regard.

But should people get hurt when someone forgets their name? At the moment of forgetting someone’s name, we may be distracted by our worries. Sometimes serious events occur in our lives. When this happens, there is little room left in our consciousness for trying to remember a name.

I propose that when we forget a name at a time our life is collapsing around us, we should not feel guilty. I propose as well that the person who forgets a name should not be made to feel guilty. Alternatively, when someone forgets money they owe us, they should feel guilty.

Forgetting an appointment

Some people believe that the failure to make an appointment is also indicative of disrespect or lack of affection. After all, if someone cannot remember when to show up for an appointment, then it must be the case that this person does not value the appointment as much as other things that he or she could do at the time of the appointment. But is this conclusion really correct?

A person may miss an appointment for some very valid reasons. A legitimate reason that leads a person to miss an appointment is when something comes up at the time he or she was to leave and go to the appointment. Sometimes the reason for missing an appointment is one that everyone would agree was legitimate. There are many events that pre-empt making an appointment: giving birth to a child, an emergency involving a good friend, a chore on which one’s life or comfort depends (such as picking up essential medicine), a fire at home or at work.

Alternatively, some events legitimately pre-empt an appointment but we cannot tell the person whose appointment we missed because the reason for missing it is of a personal and private nature. For example, people may miss an appointment because they were given a speeding ticket, they were just served papers for a lawsuit, or they had been in an argument with their significant other. In any case, when we miss an appointment for good reasons that we may or may not want to talk about, we should not feel guilty.

Falsely professing guilt for memory failure

Now I would not do this and I know neither would you. Nevertheless, not assuming some guilt can on occasion offend another person. When people call someone by the wrong name, it is sometimes seen as insulting. When people make this mistake, they understandably may choose to look a little embarrassed. Also when forgetting an appointment is seen as insulting, people who have clearly forgotten an appointment also may choose to appear guilty. In both of these cases when a show of guilt may be called for, a person also may sincerely feel bad about the memory failure.

Alternatively, a show of guilt for some memory failures is hard to believe. For example, some people claim to feel guilty because they forgot their New Year’s resolutions. Nevertheless, is guilt for such a memory failure credible? For example, we go all year long neglecting something (like our weight) or not doing something we should do (like exercise). Do we truly expect ourselves to turn over a new leaf and start a new life on Jan. 1st? I don’t think so, and I suspect, neither do you.

A change in behavior requires much more than a resolution. A change in behavior requires considerable effort. Perhaps it would be good if we actually did feel guilty when we forget to live up to our New Year’s resolutions. If we actually were burdened by guilt for forgetting our resolutions, we would take steps to eliminate this guilt by making and remembering to keep them. But we know that in most cases, New Year’s resolutions are just fantasies (except for the approximately three of us for whom guilt is helpful).

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