Promises

Day 32. Promises.

Yay, first full month of blogging is in the books! We made it! Thanks for sticking with me. Hopefully my ramblings are making a bit of sense, I know some people have commented on Facebook that I've at least gotten them thinking, so that's a good thing. Lessons begin by thinking for yourself, about the things you sometimes rather wouldn't think about at all. I promised myself I'd keep writing until I ran out of things to say, hopefully the two year goal I set up will be enough. The more I write, the more I find I need to say.

Promises are hard things. Hard to make, hard to break, hard to live up to. Sometimes we make promises in the spur of the moment, sometimes we make them out of unspoken obligations we feel to others.

A spur of the moment promise might be something we tell our kids we'll do: "I promise we'll go to the zoo next weekend." Really a small thing to an adult, but kids take promises to heart. Forget about that zoo trip, and you'll hear about it for weeks. You'll hear about it so much you'll beg them to go to the zoo with you so they'll shut up about it.

A promise of unspoken obligation? That's another story. Sometimes we promise a loved one that we'll take care of them, or of the rest of the family, when there's an illness. Even if the loved one never asks, we sometimes feel its our duty as children or eldest sibling to make sure they are cared for properly. Making sure they are comfortable at their home, or in ours, or in the best facility possible, as a very last resort. We feel we must take care of our own, right? That's a bold promise, and not one easily kept.

Often it's more than they would ever ask of us, but we still feel compelled to do it. We feel that unspoken obligation as if it were words from God himself. I've seen people go to the end of the earth to make sure they've done everything they could, and sometimes still don't think its enough, even when they've run themselves and their own family ragged. I don't believe our loved ones would hold us to such promises, especially when we never usually make them aloud. Breaking a promise made to someone in your own mind doesn't make you a bad person. As long as you do your best, that's all anyone ever asks of us.

I'm not saying that we should go around breaking promises. I really don't believe we should make so many of them. Save them for big things that are doable, not little things that you might get too busy for, or big things that are all but impossible. Biting off more than we can chew and then failing doesn't help anyone. Never let your mouth or mind make a promise that your butt can't keep.

Remember I've talked about my song that was recorded as a demo years ago? It's about promises. One of the parts goes like this:

A promise is made that we can't keep,
The river of lies, it runs too deep.
He told me once that time stands still,
Til he comes back, it probably will.

Lesson Thirty Two: Do you find yourself apologizing for breaking promises, maybe ones you shouldn't have made in the first place? Have you got a broken promise someone made to you that stands in the way of your relationship? Think about promises made, promises kept, and see if you can find where that fine line falls.

698 to go..