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On Keeping Your Word
Most people are pretty good at keeping promises to others.
When I make an appointment with a busy person, even just for something as simple as a call, they almost never cancel on me. If they do have to, they almost always apologize and work to reschedule.
This is true even if I don’t know the person. Even if the call was just a friendly chat, not something incredibly important.
There are exceptions, of course. But the fact that they feel so rude is evidence itself that broken promises to other people are quite rare. If they happened often, they would just feel normal, not like an insult.
Promises to Yourself
Yet, how often do you break promises to yourself?
You tell yourself you’ll stick to a new diet… and give up after one week.
You tell yourself you’ll start a business and never get past printing the cards.
You tell yourself you’ll make a change, but nothing ever comes from it.
We break promises to ourselves all the time. Unlike when others break their commitments to us, these are so common, that, for most of us, they don’t even feel disappointing. They’re just “part of life.”
