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Promises
Are promises meaningless words or do people who are not good enough to keep them make them?
Are people who put their trust in promises naïve or are some people simply not good people?
How do you recover from someone who broke a promise to you?
Is it right to make a promise you are not 100% sure you can keep?
The words we say to each other carry an immense amount of weight that I do not think the general population truly understands. The words that come out of your mouth are not white noise. They carry meaning. They carry emotion. They carry character. The statement “your actions speak louder than your words” has an abundance of truth, but that does not open the door for the words spoken to be taken for granted. Promises are a big deal. It is a verbal, binding commitment to something you are going to do with someone else. By promising something to someone else, you are tying yourself to them in a way. You are committed to them. It is a verbal contract, and it is way too easy for those to become meaningless.
So, who does the blame go on when there is a broken promise? Is it the person who made the promise, whether they knew it at the time or not that they would not be able to keep it? Or is it the other person for putting too much of their faith and trust into just the words of another person? It could very easily be on both parties involved, but one of the worst things is the latter gets hit 10x harder because they put their trust in someone who threw it away like it never meant anything to them. Not only did you give your trust to them, but you put your hope in them. It was up to them where they went from with it from there, so was it a bad idea in the first place to give up such a big piece of yourself to someone else?
Promises are often made in the dark. They are made in the heat of the moment between two people who, at that point in time, were on the same page about things. You guys may never talk about that exact promise ever again, but in the back of your mind, you find comfort in knowing you can hold on to those words. The words of they promise they will always love you and they promise they will never leave you. They may have said it in the moment to be done with conversation, or to get what they wanted, but did not realize the effect the words would have on you. They were unaware that you would carry those words with you during hard times, and even after they broke the promise to you. It seems physically impossible to recover from that sometimes. They took all of your hope and trust with them when they left. You will remember that feeling forever it feels like, and the thought of believing a promise anyone tells you again seems distant.
Are promises a thing of the past? Are people who hold on to them stupid for listening and believing the words that come out of the mouth of someone else? It can become so challenging to have an optimistic outlook on things. You grow and you move on when someone breaks a promise, but the scar only fades. It never truly disappears, and it becomes a reminder the next time you hear someone promise something to you. Someone ruined all of that for you, and it feels so much like it is your fault that they did that. I have confidence that is not true, but waiting for the pain and sadness to pass poses a more challenging task.
Optimist thought of the day: Situations are terrible, and it can be very difficult to make it out of them. Take it day by day, and find joy in everything. Find joy in the journey. Find joy the in the little things. I promise you it is there.