Reversing your treatment of the man you have wronged is better than asking his forgiveness.

An apology asks something of the person you hurt: attention, a decision, often absolution on your timetable. Changed treatment asks nothing. It simply arrives, day after day, as the opposite of what you did before. Words are cheap partly because they are quick, and someone who was wronged knows the difference between a sentence and a season.

If you owe someone, say the apology plainly and briefly, then let the rest be conduct. Decide what the reversal actually looks like in practice this week, and do that even if nothing is ever said back to you.