I don't know about you all, but I hate a “promise and fail” circumstance. Ohh, it hurts me in a deeper place. I've been on the receiving end of this more times than I can count. It's basically what can ruin my relationship with anybody.
If there is one thing that is constant in all of life, it's pain. But one thing that enables us to push through the pain is hope. Hope is just amazing. Hope can resuscitate a dead man. Hope can unite loved ones, Hope can keep the poor going, and so on. When you are made a promise, it is the height of Hope being ignited.
We are almost always made a promise of what we cannot do for ourselves at a particular point in time, and that makes us as hopeful as possible. Then, after that all-time high, we are also most of the time left hanging. It's a terrible feeling, the pain hurts somewhere else, somewhere we didn't know we could feel pain.
I've also realized that many times, they mean well when they make a promise, but they just don't anticipate that they wouldn't meet up with their promises. And that got me thinking, what goes on in their head when they make me a promise as a kid, watch me light up like a flashlight, and then fail to keep their promise. They look at me being deflated, and I just wonder if they feel bad, maybe they do, or they don't. But I figure after promising something they can't keep, they should stop it. But guess what? They don't!
I learnt from them, and I applied the opposite. I DO NOT PROMISE ANYTHING TO ANYONE that I feel I wouldn't be able to do. It's a watchword for me at this point. I don't want to traumatise the younger ones coming after me.
Then you are too distracted by the word promise. You can say upfront that you don't like promises. You can be forgiving if they break their promises. Also, promises made in distress are often broken easily.
I definitely was as a kid, not anymore.
Promising without fulfilling can be dangerous, and it is better for anyone to remain quiet than promising what he or she cannot fulfill
Very true.