Reading Time: 5 min
“Sometimes people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them. But you keep the promise anyway.”
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Today I feel bogged down by the weight of broken promises. The commitments that were made by friends, family and even someone special; someone reneging on their oaths.
A promise by any name
The basic foundation of a promise is that it is valid irrespective of convenience.
Promises seem simple. They are words, strung together to convey a meaning which is true now and is true in the future. They are assurances, they are a guarantee of potential excellence. They are inadvertent contradictions; they are given in a time of relative calm with a word of honour that it holds true even when everything falls apart. The basic foundation of a promise is that it is and should be valid irrespective of convenience.
It is not always so. Life has taught me that some promises are just as fragile as the relationship you thought you had with the one committed to your future. The words have lost their meaning. The assurances were hollow. The excellence was mediocre. Honour was dead. Like words on the sand, the pledges fade away the moment wind gets some steam. You find yourself braving the storm alone: left alone as they run off to take shelter.
A covenant of splinters
I rarely give out promises. Though anytime I have made one, I have kept it religiously. I still follow a promise a decade ago, even when the person I gave it to is not in my life anymore. Promises are never about the words. They are always about people. The problem with giving promises to someone like me is that I will believe you. Everything that you say I will take that as a gospel in the relationship. I will trust you implicitly. But when that trust is splintered, the leftover pieces are no less than sharp stabs. It hurts. You start questioning if that trust was ever warranted.
The irony is I understand; self-preservation is the prime directive. Expecting anything more than that from anyone is a luxury that most of us cannot afford. But a part of me cannot reconcile with the fragments of the broken promise left at the wake of that aforementioned flight to safety. One gets old enough and they will have baggage filled with such broken promises. No one will blame them if they succumb its weight, it is more than most can bear.
A promising future
But I do have a choice, never to give in. I do not want to be cynical. I do not want to be sceptical of people. I do not want to punish new people for the failures of people who were not strong to follow-through with their word. In the world of lies and facades, I still want to believe and trust, with a hope that the trust will be returned. I do not just want to dream of a world where no one needs to ever give a promise, where decency is the common currency and tust is not a term to be scoffed at, I want to live in it.
This post is a little more emotional than what I generally prefer, but something that i wanted to share. I believe words have power and find it difficult trusting people who take words lightly.
This image was clicked in Zurich on a November evening. Check out Unbreakable Love for a story where the promise was kept and follow me on Instagram for more travel photographs.
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