Screw the “promises are meant to be broken” adage. We live in a messed up world where betrayal, disloyalty, adultery and duplicity are everywhere. Furthermore, the media makes a lot of money out of these by sensationalizing these themes. And worse, a lot of us are lead to the belief it’s normal to make promises and break them. The “well, since everyone does it, I should do it too “attitude has destroyed a lot friendships, families, marriages and societies. More importantly, we not only destroy these relationships but we set up our inability to trust ourselves and others to keep promises. Why is it a lot of us are so good when it comes to making promises but are failures when it comes to keeping them?
A lot of us, especially Filipinos, are so good when it comes to making promises but are bad when it comes to keeping them because we want to please everybody including ourselves. There’s no feeling like promising to do something and being looked up to for doing so. We’re so preoccupied with making promises and feeling good about it in the present that we don’t think about its consequences in the future. Unfortunately, this feeling good eventually fades away when reality hits us in the face with the fact that we have made promises and, thus, the inevitable responsibility of keeping them. Keeping promises (be it in the form of paying your debts in time, doing something for the people you love, or producing something to people you work with) takes time and effort. And as we all know, putting time and effort into something has a degree of pain placed into it. Since it’s our natural tendency to repel pain as human beings, we procrastinate and, eventually, we break promises. Not only do we break promises in the process, we also break the trust of people and more importantly our ability to trust ourselves in making and keeping promises.
Since we’re so “good” when it comes to making promises and bad when it comes to keeping them, I would like to elaborate more on why we should avoid making promises we don’t want to keep and keep the promises we make.
A promise or a commitment is the disciplining of oneself to do what is more important in order to achieve one’s promises to self and others. Let me make it clear to you, we make promises and we keep them because we want to develop the quality of trustworthiness towards others and ourselves. We make and keep promises because these people you’re making promises to are important.
The ability to make and fulfill commitments first starts with the belief of oneself. If you believe and trust yourself that you’re capable of making and keeping promises to yourself and others, you’ll keep them. The Law of Reciprocity works when it comes to making and keeping promises. The more promises you keep, the more trustworthy you are and the more you trust yourself. And trust towards oneself is very vital in achieving our personal goals and aspirations in life. Because if we don’t have that ability to trust ourselves, we won’t get far ahead in life. So it pays to keep promises.
The number of promises you make is nothing compared to the promises you keep. It doesn’t matter how many promises you make, what matters is the degree of quality when it comes to keeping those promises. Here’ s a thought: only make promises you can keep. That’ll make your life easier and better. Of course, there’ll be people who may be disappointed but the thing is you’re not only doing a favor to these people by not making promises you can’t keep anyway but you’re able to preserve the trust of people towards you. That’s something more than just the fleeting feeling of feeling good on making promises you don’t want to keep.
Remember, by learning to say “no” to promises you can’t make, you’re, in fact, saying a big “YES” to people and activities that really matter to you. By learning to make promises you can keep, you’ll be in the position to live a better quality life which God promises and intends us to live.
Make promises and keep them because promises are meant to be kept. That’s a promise we need to keep to ourselves, others and God.
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