I stopped saying “sorry” before sharing my opinion

Dear Delyara, Not once. Not “Sorry, just one thing…” Not “Sorry, I may be wrong, but…” Not the small self-erasing preface I have used for years to make my own intelligence easier for the room to digest. This week I noticed myself about to do it and stopped. I simply spoke. The point landed more clearly. I sounded more like a professional and less like someone asking permission to exist in the conversation. It was such a small change in language, but it felt larger in my body than I expected. Sometimes self-respect enters through the mouth in tiny grammatical ways.