Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Understanding Time and Space & The Steps to a Perfect Apology

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Starting point is 00:00:17 You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches. Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Today on Something You Should Know, some simple ways to be healthier that only take a minute. Then, a scientific look at the universe and what are the chances there are other planets that could support intelligent life? We estimate that in our Milky Way galaxy, the number of Earth-like planets around Sun-like

Starting point is 00:00:52 stars with just the right orbits, in other words, potential homes for life, is somewhere around 5 billion. Also, why does the snooze on your alarm clock give you nine more minutes of sleep, but not ten? And the importance of a good apology. Across the millennia, religious traditions around the world embody different ways for people to face and atone for what they do wrong. It's like a basic human universal need to address these things. And when you don't, you feel bad. All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,

Starting point is 00:01:35 looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology.

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Starting point is 00:02:37 The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. You hear a lot of advice today about what you should do to be healthy. And frankly, a lot of it sounds like a lot of work. So here are some ways to be healthy that don't require a lot of work. In fact, they only take a minute. First of all, dry brush your teeth. Before squeezing toothpaste onto the brush, take 30 seconds to brush your teeth with a dry toothbrush.

Starting point is 00:03:15 Doing so cuts tartar by 60% and reduces the risk of bleeding gums by half. Energize for less. Coffee isn't the only drink that'll boost your energy late in the day. Club soda with lime will do wonders. The carbonation and the aroma of the lime will energize you. Slice thin, eat less. Slicing food thinly will make your portions seem bigger and more satisfying. In a study at Japan's National

Starting point is 00:03:46 Food Research Institute, participants who compared equal amounts of sliced and whole vegetables rated the sliced piles up to 27% larger. When you believe you're eating a larger portion of food, you trick yourself into feeling more satisfied with fewer calories. Get to sleep faster. Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, just wear socks. Swiss researchers found that people fell asleep quickest when their hands and feet were warmest. Show some gratitude. Studies have shown that 90% of people say expressing gratitude made them happier people,

Starting point is 00:04:31 and more than 75% said it reduced stress and depression and gave them more energy. And try some fresh flowers in the morning. Looking at a vase of fresh daisies, tulips, roses, or other cut flowers while eating breakfast can improve your mood. Research from Harvard shows that even people who say they're not morning people report feeling happier and more energetic after looking at fresh-cut flowers first thing in the morning. And that is something you should know. Two of my favorite topics are time and space.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Just looking up at the night sky and contemplating the vastness of space and trying to get a handle on what time actually is. Is time travel possible? We can travel in space, but we can't travel in time. Except we can go into the future, because that's what we're doing all the time. There are fascinating questions about time and space, and here to discuss them is Paul Sutter. Paul is an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University.

Starting point is 00:05:36 He hosts the Ask a Spaceman podcast, and he's author of the book, How to Die in Space. Hey, Paul, so let's just dive in here. What is time? What is time? I don't know. And nobody knows. And that's kind of the problem with time. And it's funny that you mentioned that you're fascinated by time. Just about everybody is fascinated by time. And physicists are fascinated by time. And physicists have been trying to understand the nature of time for a very long time. And we do know some things about time, even though we haven't cracked the whole thing. We know a couple of things. We've learned one or two things.

Starting point is 00:06:18 One of the things we've learned is through Einstein's special theory of relativity, that space and time are intimately connected. In fact, you can't think of movement through space or measurement in space aside or separate from movement in time or separations in time. You have to think of them as a unified framework, something we call space-time. This is the four dimensional fabric of our entire universe So we know there's a connection there But we also know that time is still a little bit special and different From our three spatial dimensions in space. You can move in any direction you want You can go left or right you can go up or down you can go left or right. You can go up or down. You can go forward

Starting point is 00:07:06 or backward. It doesn't matter. But time, you can only go into the future. We cannot, as far as we can tell, travel into our own past. It seems from everything we can observe, that time is unidirectional. It can only go into the future. And why is that different? Why is time so special? Why does time have that property? Beats me, but it's driving us nuts. Well, and you can only go into the future at one pace. You can't speed up or go slow. You can only go at the same pace as everybody else. Actually, you can change the rate of progression into your own future. You are allowed to skip forward into the future. science special theory of relativity which tells us that space and time are connected and through relativity we learn that the faster you go in space the slower you move in time so

Starting point is 00:08:15 if you start moving faster and faster and faster if you start running or you get in a rocket ship or you hitch a ride on a nearby comet the closer closer you get to the speed of light, the faster you're moving in time, you will feel totally normal. The flow of time on your wristwatch and your heartbeat, the rhythms of day, all that is exactly the same. But from the outside universe looking in, it looks like you're moving in slow motion. And it's this difference that makes relativity the theory of relativity. Measurements of space and time are relative to the observer. So it is totally possible, 100% allowed by physics and something we have measured and experimentally verified that if you were to go fast, say you were to go up to 99% of the speed of light and you were to cruise around like that for 20 years or so, you would come back to Earth and it could be a thousand years into the future.

Starting point is 00:09:27 And that is totally legit. It's clear, though, that you can't travel back in time because, you know, as the saying goes, if time travel was possible, where are all the people from the future? That if you could travel back in time, people from the future would be traveling back here to tell us how to do it. And we don't see those people. Right, right. So you can skip forward into the future. You can affect the rate of the flow of passage of time into the future. But you can't stop the flow of time and you can't turn around the flow of time. Time travel into the future is a-OK, happens all the time.

Starting point is 00:10:08 Time travel into the past appears to be forbidden. And one of the examples is, yeah, if time travel into the past is allowed, where are all the future people coming to visit? That doesn't seem to be happening. There are also other issues with time travel into the past, like the whole grandfather paradox thing. Like if you go back in time and shoot your grandfather before he has your father,

Starting point is 00:10:35 then you aren't alive. You are never born. So how did you become alive in order to go back in time to shoot your grandfather? You set up a paradox, but that paradox only exists if time travel into the past is allowed. But wait, all that was explained in Back to the Future, that when you go back in time and change the future from that point in time, you create an alternate universe.

Starting point is 00:11:02 And Doc Brown, Doc Brown explained that. Yeah, Doc Brown is not exactly a respected member of the physics or scientific communities. And in his words should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not sure what he's a doctor of exactly. They don't specify. They don't specify. He's just a doctor. And I remember hearing someone say, and it always stuck with me, that science has no special designation or explanation or definition for now. Now is not anything special. What we call now is what in relativity we call an event. An event is a specific point in both space and time. So if I were to meet you for coffee tomorrow at 4 p.m. at this coffee shop, there would be an event

Starting point is 00:11:57 attached to the moment of our meeting and the location of our meeting. It is this moment in time and it is this location in space. It is our coordinate in space time and that is the now in physics. understand why it moves forward but not backwards. We have concocted over the years various attempts at time machines or various contraptions, various ideas, various theories of how to travel back in time. But every time we do, every time we concoct some device or physical scenario that would permit travel into the past, there is some rule or some law of physics or some understanding of the way things work that prevents it. But it's a different thing every time that prevents the ability to travel back in time. And so what we don't have, what we're lacking in physics, what really bugs us is an overarching fundamental explanation for why time always flows forward. There's no equation we can point to, there's nothing we can print on a

Starting point is 00:13:17 t-shirt, there's nothing we can write articles about that says, oh this is the reason, this is the fundamental physics reason why time cannot flow backwards. It just doesn't, but we're not exactly sure why. We're talking about space and time and the universe, and we're talking about that with Paul Sutter. He's an astrophysicist at Stony Brook University. He hosts the Ask a Space

Starting point is 00:13:45 Man podcast, and he's author of the book, How to Die in Space. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know,

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Starting point is 00:15:26 get your podcasts. So, Paul, when you look at space travel, and particularly if you look at fictional space travel, Star Trek, Star Wars, there's a lot of intergalactic travel, there's a lot of interplanetary travel. And yet when you look at the science, I mean, the universe is so big, galaxies are so big, that even at the speed of light, it would seem hard to be able to do a whole lot of traveling and go a whole lot of places in outer space, just because it is so big, and you can only go so fast. Yeah, space travel that you see in the movies is tough to replicate in the real world. Interplanetary travel, I mean, we do that on the regular anyway, not with people, but with robots, which is the next best thing.

Starting point is 00:16:19 So traveling within our solar system is just fine. But our missions to the outer planets take years. Like New Horizons that's swung by Pluto back in 2016, that mission took nine and a half years to reach Pluto. And that was just one member in our solar system. That same spacecraft is currently cruising at about 36 000 miles per hour which is kind of fast but if and it's not even pointed in it in the direction of any particular star if it were pointed to our next nearest neighbor proxima centauri a proxima centauri sits about four light years away new horizons traveling at 36 000 miles per hour would take about 40,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri. And that is one of our fastest spacecraft ever. If you really want interstellar travel, you have to anything up to that kind of speed is just so far beyond our technical abilities.

Starting point is 00:17:31 It's not impossible, but it's not happening in our lifetimes. Just as you cannot travel back in time, is it also true that you cannot, that there's no way, what we know that you can travel faster than the speed of light? Yep, that's not a thing. And I know every time I say, no, we can't travel faster than the speed of light. They say, well, we used to think you couldn't travel faster than the speed of sound. And we're wrong about that. The speed of sound thing. Some people were worried about us traveling faster than the speed of sound. Not that it was impossible, but that we didn't have the materials, the engineering to withstand the turbulence and forces that you would encounter when traveling faster than the speed of sound.

Starting point is 00:18:16 The speed of light is different. This is not an engineering issue. This is not a material science issue. This is not a cleverness or ingenuity issue. This is not a material science issue. This is not a cleverness or ingenuity issue. This is a rule that is baked into the very fabric of the universe. That whole space-time thing, that whole connection between space and time is enabled through the finiteness of the speed of light and the inability of objects to go faster than it. We have measured this. We have tested this countless times over the past hundred years

Starting point is 00:18:55 since we first cooked up this whole relativity business. And if you want a universe where travel faster than the speed of light is possible, we would have to rewrite almost everything we know about fundamental physics, which is not impossible. It's happened before, but you've got a long, long way to go. You've got a lot of work to do to show how it's possible in our universe because everything we've seen for a hundred years has pointed to the fact that we can't go faster than the speed of light so aliens what are the chances that they're out there and what are the chances that we'll ever have cocktails with them right aliens are fun so here we are on the Earth. The Earth has liquid water oceans, a nice thick atmosphere, a strong magnetic field. It's just the right distance from our star. We got plenty of life going on here on the Earth. It's a big universe. Our own Milky Way galaxy is

Starting point is 00:20:01 home to 300 billion stars, and there are about 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. So if life happened here with this set of conditions, it's likely that this set of conditions is replicated other places in the universe. So we estimate, we have very rough estimates, so take this number with a huge grain of salt. But we estimate that in our Milky Way galaxy, the number of Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars with just the right orbits, in other words, potential homes for life that we would recognize, is somewhere around 5 billion. There might be 5 billion copies of the Earth out there in our own galaxy, let alone the 2 trillion galaxies in the universe. That said, life is incredibly rare.

Starting point is 00:20:55 We have absolutely no evidence for life outside of the Earth. We have absolutely no signals that we've received. We see no signs of intelligence or life in any of our surveys, and we've done a lot of surveys on this. If life were common, we would have picked it up by now, but we simply haven't. So we know that life is rare, but we also know that it's a big universe. My best guess is my intuition is telling me that life is relatively common, that our galaxy is probably home to other intelligent species, that we're probably not alone. But the vastness of interstellar space prevents us from ever visiting or ever contacting or probably even ever talking to each other.

Starting point is 00:21:45 The universe is gigantic. The spaces between stars, the lengths of galaxies are so incredibly vast. They are literally beyond human comprehension. And we just can't even wrap our minds around the kinds of distances we're talking about. So even though I think we are probably not alone in the universe, we are effectively alone in the universe. What are the things that you studied in all the years that you've studied it? One or two things that just jump out at you as being just so darn cool? One of the coolest things I've studied over the past few years is something called cosmic voids. These are large, empty regions in the cosmos. This is when you look at the cosmos, look at the universe at the very largest scales of the galaxies in our universe aren't scattered around randomly.

Starting point is 00:22:45 They're arranged in this beautiful and complex cobweb shape, a cobweb pattern. And it's called the cosmic web. And like any cobweb, there's the lines, but then there's also the gaps. There's the big empty regions. And I focused a lot on absolutely nothing. I wrote papers, many papers on the properties of absolutely nothing, using them to try to understand the growth and evolution and history of our universe. But just when I sit back and think about the scales involved,

Starting point is 00:23:19 like when we do a galaxy survey and we map out the cosmic voids and we start studying them and measuring them and their properties, realizing that I am studying a structure that is 80 million light years wide and it is absolutely devoid of matter. That is just a mind-boggling fact to me and how those things grew up and evolved and what they can tell us about the universe really gets my motor going. And so talk about this whole concept of how the universe is expanding, because if it's expanding, what's it expanding into? You know, those kind of big universe questions. Our universe is getting bigger every single day.

Starting point is 00:24:05 We live in an expanding universe. We live in an expanding universe. Our universe has no edge. It has no center. It is not expanding from anything and is not expanding into anything. It simply is. Our universe exists because if our universe was expanding into something, then that something would be a thing,

Starting point is 00:24:28 and that would be counted as a part of the universe because the universe is, by definition, all the things. So you can't have all the things and then plus some other stuff that we didn't include. The universe is not expanding into anything. It has no boundary. It has no edge. It has no boundary, it has no edge, it has no center. The distances between galaxies grows with time. That's what we mean when we say we live in an expanding universe. The average distance

Starting point is 00:24:55 between all galaxies grows with time. If that's hard to conceptualize, if that's hard to wrap your mind around, like how can something be getting bigger without expanding into anything? Well, this is one of the wonderful parts of mathematics and why we use mathematics and physics is because the mathematics that describes an expanding universe are perfectly clear, perfectly coherent, perfectly able to describe the history and present state of the universe and compare with observations so we know we're on the right track. And mathematics is a tool that lets us do things, lets us grapple with concepts and understand concepts that we couldn't just imagine on our own. So with the tool, with the power of mathematics, we can learn that we live in an expanding universe that is not expanding into anything. Well, I always enjoy these kinds of conversations with people who know what they're talking about, because it makes you think differently. It makes you try to grasp concepts that are pretty difficult to grasp, but it's all so fascinating. Paul Sutter has been my guest. Paul is an

Starting point is 00:26:06 astrophysicist at Stony Brook University. His podcast is called Ask a Spaceman, and he is also author of the book, How to Die in Space. And there's a link to his podcast and to his book in the show notes. Thank you, Paul. All right. Thank you so much. which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong? And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday, where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:27:04 New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. It's hard to get too far in life without having to make an apology to someone.

Starting point is 00:27:44 Things happen. We make mistakes. We do dumb things. People get hurt. And so we need to apologize. Apologies are important. So what makes a good apology? What is the goal of an apology? What if the person you need to or want to apologize to doesn't want to hear from you? These are questions that Molly Howes has looked into. She is a Harvard trained clinical psychologist and author of the book, A Good Apology, Four Steps to Make Things Right. Hi, Molly. Hi, Mike. I'm glad to be here. So it might come as a surprise to some people that we're even talking about this because

Starting point is 00:28:23 on the surface anyway apologies are so self-evident I mean some you do something wrong you say you're sorry and life goes on well for little things that might work fine but in my experience people actually don't apologize many times when they should even when they think they should. The apologies that we witness in the public arena are often grossly inadequate. Everybody can tell that they're not working. And mostly, I think that's because we don't know how.

Starting point is 00:28:59 So what's a good apology look like? I know you have four steps to a good apology. So quickly, what are they? Okay, the first step is to learn and understand what happened to the other person. What's the impact on them? What is the hurt feeling that they have? And what caused it? Nothing about you during this step matters. Doesn't matter how nice a person you are, what your intentions were. It only matters about the impact on the other person. So you've got to learn that first. Then the second step is to make a statement of regret and responsibility. It's owning it.

Starting point is 00:29:36 It's acknowledging the behavior, even if you didn't mean it, and that it had an effect on the other person that hurt them. That's what we usually think of as an apology. In my view, you need all four steps them. That's what we usually think of as an apology. In my view, you need all four steps, but that's what we usually think of as an apology. The third step is making restitution, making up for the hurt or the harm, whatever it is you cost someone else. In the law, that's usually financial, making someone whole, returning them to their previous financial situation.

Starting point is 00:30:05 In relationships, it's more likely to be a do-over or a symbolic restitution. The fourth step is to make sure that the hurt won't be repeated. It's to set up conditions that are different from the ones that produced the original hurt. What if you do something that hurts somebody's feelings, or something happens where they feel bad and think you should apologize, but you don't necessarily think what you did was wrong? You were, I don't know, just being honest, or you were just, you know, where an apology might seem appropriate from the victim, but you don't think you owe them one.

Starting point is 00:30:51 I would argue that you can regret the fact that you hurt someone, whether or not you intended it. It's not really a question of blame. It's a question of caring. I'm sure we all know people who maybe are a little too sensitive and get hurt way too much. And, you know, it would be a big waste of time to keep apologizing for every little thing. It could be. I mean, sometimes people keep needing an apology because they didn't get a good one yet. It does take two people to make an apology because they didn't get a good one yet. It does take two people to make an apology, and there are times, I'm sure we've all had,

Starting point is 00:31:28 where you've maybe done something wrong and the other person doesn't want your apology. They don't want to hear from you again, or they don't want to talk about it anymore. They don't want to apologize and hear the four steps about restitution and all that. They just want to, you know, leave me alone. Right. Well, if there's not an ongoing relationship, it might not be worth pushing at all, right? Because it doesn't matter. If it doesn't matter to the other person enough to have the conversation, that's okay. In my view, when you approach someone to make an apology, it's a request. It's a request for a conversation. It's not a demand. It's not a demand for

Starting point is 00:32:08 forgiveness either. In a lot of cases, making an apology is very difficult. It's hard to do. So what are the benefits of doing it? If you're going to have to go through all this work and discomfort, what's the point? What's the benefit of doing it? There are enormous benefits. You know, if something goes wrong in a relationship and the two of you can fix it, then you know more about each other and you feel closer to each other and you have more confidence going forward that you can handle something else that comes up. You're stronger. You have something called relationship esteem, you know, like self-esteem only about your relationship.

Starting point is 00:32:51 You feel better about you as a couple that you can handle things. In medicine, an apology has a very powerful effect in that patients and their families feel better, doctors feel better. There's the potential for less malpractice suit, fewer malpractice suits. What do you mean in medicine? Give me an example. Like for medical error. The old standard used to be that the medical system sort of closed ranks and never apologized. And they were afraid that there'd be more malpractice suits. But that's not the way it goes. If the harm done to someone that they love or

Starting point is 00:33:32 themselves is recognized and spoken, they feel acknowledged, as opposed to kind of shut out. And then they want a kind of healing rather than revenge. I always figure, too, if somebody apologizes, it makes them less the enemy. Correct. That the tension is relieved a little bit, that they're trying to make amends or they're trying to see it from my point of view and be empathetic, that somehow the conflict diminishes. I think that is profound, yes.

Starting point is 00:34:10 The interesting thing to me about apologies is, if it does so much good, why is it so hard? Oh, that is a great question. That's the big question. One reason is that our brains are wired not to see our mistakes for all kinds of reasons. I mean, perceptually, we actually literally do not see them. We're subject to optical illusions of all sorts. And our own mistakes are things that we tend not to see. It's inefficient for our brains. The neuroscientists tell us our brains want to be efficient. And it's inefficient to notice a mistake and have to go back and correct it.

Starting point is 00:34:51 Another reason is that our culture is set up to support a kind of confident, certain, moving forward, powerful, independent kind of person, which is kind of a male model, but not only. And those people are not really focused on connections with other people, much less harm to other people. It's not part of the story. It's a sign of weakness. It's considered a sign of weakness if you admit that you did something wrong or made a mistake or want to make up for something, right? You're supposed to be confident and on top of it and unflustered. To make a good apology requires, I think, courage, but it also requires a certain kind of humble

Starting point is 00:35:38 approach, you know, curiosity, openness, and that's not that dominant model that some of our leaders have. Another reason is the one we already talked about, which is that there are very few models. We don't see people doing it. We don't teach our children how to do it very well, right? When kids were taught, say, I'm sorry, and that's sort of like magic words, and it makes everything okay, but in fact, it doesn't really work. Teach kids to say things they don't mean, they don't know for sure what it even means. And so how are we supposed to know how to make things right? How are we supposed to know how to heal harm, how to mend relationships when there's been a breach between people?

Starting point is 00:36:22 Do you think the apology, when done well, is more for the recipient or the sender? That's a great question. I think it's sort of equal. I mean, it's obviously about the person who was hurt, right? And you want to address their hurt, their harm, whatever they need, right? That's the focus of the conversation. But the apologizer benefits so enormously, too. It's just remarkable. Benefits in what way?

Starting point is 00:36:55 Across the millennia, religious traditions around the world embody different ways for people to face and atone for what they do wrong. It's like a basic human universal need to address these things. And when you don't, you feel bad. What if you have done something that has hurt someone else and you feel the need to apologize, but there's no interest in hearing it on the other side? Yeah, yeah. There are times when it's not the thing to do, particularly if they've asked you not to. Like, I don't want to hear from you again.

Starting point is 00:37:33 Then you have to honor that. What about those cases? I can think of several times in my life where this has happened, and so I assume other people can too, where something has gone wrong. It happens with car accidents all the time where, where blame is assigned, even though it doesn't really, it was an accident. It was just, you know, two, two cars in the same place at the same time. Yeah. Somebody was wrong, but it wasn't like they deliberately tried to do anything.

Starting point is 00:38:03 I remember when I was a kid, I remember this very distinctly, this playing with this little boy. I was on the other side of the yard, and he fell down and broke his collarbone, and I got blamed for it. I was nowhere near, and I had to apologize. And I thought, well, what am I apologizing for? But things like that happen where an apology is going to go a long way to probably ease a lot of discomfort in people, but it's so disingenuous. Yeah, I kind of think if it's disingenuous, it's probably a bad idea. Well, little Billy's mom insisted, and it made her feel better. Right. So you're a kid and you have to obey the grown-ups.

Starting point is 00:38:45 Okay. That's a little different than a real apology. But, you know, maybe you care about little Billy and his collarbone, and so you offer a condolence, I'm sorry. Maybe that's what the I'm sorry means. But in a car accident, you know, or even in a fight between two people, even if one person is kind of more at fault, often both people have something that they have contributed. Right?

Starting point is 00:39:12 Often you can find something that you regret or that you wish you'd done differently, and you can see how it landed badly on the other person. Right? Even if you're not primarily at fault. And so what happens when you apologize and you're not forgiven? People or somebody says, well, you're an idiot. So I don't, you know, I mean, so you make the attempt, you try to apologize, you try to go through your four steps, and you get smacked in the face. Yeah, well, I think that's not so common, actually. But it could happen for sure. And if that's the end of the relationship, you have to chalk that one up to, you know, no more opportunities, right?

Starting point is 00:39:59 But it's not usually how it goes. Usually, as you said in the beginning, the other person softens because you have softened. They're not your enemy anymore because you're not their enemy anymore. Sometimes it takes more than one try also. You know, serious harms in a relationship take quite a while to work out. The apology is stretched out. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Yeah, well, that's an interesting idea, because I think people, if they apologize,

Starting point is 00:40:31 or they attempt to apologize, and they're turned away, well, I did what I could, and so that's the end of that. Yeah, so that's the end of that, is exactly the thing I want to raise as a question. The most important take-home message from my book is when things have gone badly between you and someone else, even your first attempt to say I'm sorry, if it's gone badly, that's not the end of the story. There are still chances and possibilities to make things right. And we often settle for that's the end of the story, because we got hurt or we hurt somebody else or they're mad at us or whatever.

Starting point is 00:41:12 You know, and that's not necessarily true. It does seem, or maybe this is how people rationalize not apologizing, is that in some cases to apologize is to stir it all up again, and maybe it's just better left alone. Yeah, well, that probably is true sometimes. I tend to think otherwise, though, that it's worth a try. You know, if you can bring peace to someone about something that happened a long time ago, you know, why not try? I think this has come up during the pandemic, that people have an opportunity to think about their old relationships more. They sort of rework old, you know, breakups or partings of the way.

Starting point is 00:41:59 And, you know, they start thinking about, gosh, I wonder if there's something I could do to make that better. And I think if you make an invitation to the other party, not a demand, an invitation, is it okay with you if we talk about what went wrong? You know, or I'd like to understand more what happened for you. People can say no. So the big takeaway here is what? What is the big message that you want people to get? Well, there's a couple. One is that big one about it isn't the end of the story just because things

Starting point is 00:42:36 have gone wrong between you and someone else. It might be possible to write a next chapter. You know, it might be possible to make things better and different. And another thing is, you probably don't know the whole story. Even if you're the one who's feeling hurt, you probably don't know everything about the other person's experience. You probably know part of the story. And in general, you know, you should speak as if you're right about things, but you should listen as if you're wrong. And that's the way you find out about the other one's point of view. Well, that's some interesting advice. Speak as if you're right about something,

Starting point is 00:43:19 but listen as if you're wrong. Molly Howes has been my guest. She's a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist and she is author of the book A Good Apology, Four Steps to Make Things Right. And you will find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for being here, Molly. Oh, thank you so much, Mike. It was a pleasure talking to you.

Starting point is 00:43:42 If you have an alarm clock, no matter how old it is, the snooze button will likely give you nine more minutes of sleep. But why nine? Why not ten? Or why not make it programmable so you could set the snooze to any length? Well, on some modern digital devices, you can set the snooze, but most are set to nine minutes, and it has to do with the history of the alarm clock. By the time the snooze, but most are set to 9 minutes, and it has to do with the history of the alarm clock.

Starting point is 00:44:07 By the time the snooze feature was added in the 1950s, the inner workings of the alarm clocks had long been standardized. This meant that the teeth of the snooze gear had to mesh with the existing configuration, and that left engineers with a single choice. They could set the snooze for either about 9 minutes or they could set it for about 10 minutes. But early reports indicated that 10 minutes was too long

Starting point is 00:44:35 and would allow you to fall back into a deep sleep. So clockmakers decided on 9 minutes instead of 10, believing people would wake up easier and happier after a shorter snooze. And today, even though the snooze on virtually any new clock could be set to any length, they're still mostly set to 9 minutes, because that's what consumers expect. And that is something you should know. We always need and really appreciate when you spread the word about this podcast by telling people you know to give it a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper.

Starting point is 00:45:21 In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law,

Starting point is 00:45:51 her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends,

Starting point is 00:46:32 including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Understanding Time and Space & The Steps to a Perfect Apology

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