Breaking a Promise
Breaking a promise.
Did you ever make a promise without noticing and then break it? And then you take a step in that broken promise, thinking you’re doing the right thing to please a whole lot of people, when in fact, you’re choosing to go against your word to yourself “for the greater good” of everyone looking at you?You see everyone smiling with pride and adoration for your accomplishments, but you feel nothing as you choose to honor everyone else. And in the background is doubt. “Maybe I didn’t really make a promise. Maybe things will iron out.”
So now you have two promises. A private one to someone you love that all of this energy and absence and chaos will now come to an end and things will return to whatever “normal” was before. And a more public one in a new community that welcomes you into a leadership role with an expectation of monthly meetings and quarterly trips to Atlanta. And you balance the two promises by justifying the one as much more relaxed than previously—and besides, you kind of want the space anyway, right? And then by doing only the bare minimum with the second promise because you’re not sure you were supposed to do it anyway. And you become complacent in your loss of integrity.
But then six months later, you’re asked by people in leadership in the second group to choose to coach the program you promised previously that you would stop. By now, you have completely forgotten your original promise. And because your life is already filled with a scheduled trip to Cancun and a scheduled theater production, you expect that there would be too many conflicts for you to do the program. So you should be able to get out of it. But you discover with surprise that the people still want you to coach to the program anyway, and “is there anything else in the way that would stop you from doing it?” And you can’t think of any at the moment. So you commit to doing it without really knowing all of the details and the extra commitments that are now expected of you.
And the person you already broke your promise to has no idea how many hours you will be pulled away, and how many weekends you will be preoccupied or gone. Since you don’t really know either, you minimize the decision without counting the cost to yourself, to the one you love, or to the relationship your building together.
Now you are being pulled away by a promise bigger than yourself for a cause that makes no sense to the person you love. And because you are stuck in a lifelong trap of pleasing people by doing what you said you would do, “no matter what!”, you keep the bigger commitment and you justify it as necessary for your life, your career, your future.
And the one you love, let’s you get by with it, without saying much.
Resentment starts to grow, and your oblivious to it. You’re caught being too busy to notice the suffering going on in your life—you actually hate what your doing, frequently—and the private suffering taking place in the one you are abandoning every Friday night. And your broken promise continues to build a silent wedge in the heart.
Somehow, in the thick of everything emotionally disastrous that you are dealing with in the program, you choose to quit the job you have hated for at least three years and you branch out on your own in an agency you barely know. And you think you’re doing yourself and your partner a favor by moving forward in your life. Yet you remain completely unaware of the pain and sadness taking place right next to you. And the broken promise is completely forgotten.
When the next program comes around and you are asked to coach again, you have the audacity to ask your partner’s opinion about doing it. You are completely surprised when the answer is “Do what makes you happy.” And you think in all sincerity that your partner is being supportive. You don’t even notice the edge to the voice, the tone—until much later, when it is too late. And you dig deeper into your broken promise with a new commitment for another six and a half months. You have no idea how easy it would have been to stop the whole madness you created, if you had just paid attention to what wasn’t being said. And if you had just dug a little deeper to seek the truth about what was really going on in the one you love, you absolutely would have made different choices.
And now, after everything has shattered and come to and end, what is there to say?
“I broke my promise to you, and the end result is all of this mess. I am sorry for the pain I caused and the suffering you went through because of the choices I made. If you choose to ever trust me again, I promise to have honest conversations with you before I agree to take on any new opportunity that might pull me away. And I ask that you tell me the truth about how you really feel rather than telling me what you think I want to hear. And if I break a promise again, tell me quickly, so I can set it straight as soon as possible.”
Did you ever make a promise without noticing and then break it? And then you take a step in that broken promise, thinking you’re doing the right thing to please a whole lot of people, when in fact, you’re choosing to go against your word to yourself “for the greater good” of everyone looking at you?You see everyone smiling with pride and adoration for your accomplishments, but you feel nothing as you choose to honor everyone else. And in the background is doubt. “Maybe I didn’t really make a promise. Maybe things will iron out.”
So now you have two promises. A private one to someone you love that all of this energy and absence and chaos will now come to an end and things will return to whatever “normal” was before. And a more public one in a new community that welcomes you into a leadership role with an expectation of monthly meetings and quarterly trips to Atlanta. And you balance the two promises by justifying the one as much more relaxed than previously—and besides, you kind of want the space anyway, right? And then by doing only the bare minimum with the second promise because you’re not sure you were supposed to do it anyway. And you become complacent in your loss of integrity.
But then six months later, you’re asked by people in leadership in the second group to choose to coach the program you promised previously that you would stop. By now, you have completely forgotten your original promise. And because your life is already filled with a scheduled trip to Cancun and a scheduled theater production, you expect that there would be too many conflicts for you to do the program. So you should be able to get out of it. But you discover with surprise that the people still want you to coach to the program anyway, and “is there anything else in the way that would stop you from doing it?” And you can’t think of any at the moment. So you commit to doing it without really knowing all of the details and the extra commitments that are now expected of you.
And the person you already broke your promise to has no idea how many hours you will be pulled away, and how many weekends you will be preoccupied or gone. Since you don’t really know either, you minimize the decision without counting the cost to yourself, to the one you love, or to the relationship your building together.
Now you are being pulled away by a promise bigger than yourself for a cause that makes no sense to the person you love. And because you are stuck in a lifelong trap of pleasing people by doing what you said you would do, “no matter what!”, you keep the bigger commitment and you justify it as necessary for your life, your career, your future.
And the one you love, let’s you get by with it, without saying much.
Resentment starts to grow, and your oblivious to it. You’re caught being too busy to notice the suffering going on in your life—you actually hate what your doing, frequently—and the private suffering taking place in the one you are abandoning every Friday night. And your broken promise continues to build a silent wedge in the heart.
Somehow, in the thick of everything emotionally disastrous that you are dealing with in the program, you choose to quit the job you have hated for at least three years and you branch out on your own in an agency you barely know. And you think you’re doing yourself and your partner a favor by moving forward in your life. Yet you remain completely unaware of the pain and sadness taking place right next to you. And the broken promise is completely forgotten.
When the next program comes around and you are asked to coach again, you have the audacity to ask your partner’s opinion about doing it. You are completely surprised when the answer is “Do what makes you happy.” And you think in all sincerity that your partner is being supportive. You don’t even notice the edge to the voice, the tone—until much later, when it is too late. And you dig deeper into your broken promise with a new commitment for another six and a half months. You have no idea how easy it would have been to stop the whole madness you created, if you had just paid attention to what wasn’t being said. And if you had just dug a little deeper to seek the truth about what was really going on in the one you love, you absolutely would have made different choices.
And now, after everything has shattered and come to and end, what is there to say?
“I broke my promise to you, and the end result is all of this mess. I am sorry for the pain I caused and the suffering you went through because of the choices I made. If you choose to ever trust me again, I promise to have honest conversations with you before I agree to take on any new opportunity that might pull me away. And I ask that you tell me the truth about how you really feel rather than telling me what you think I want to hear. And if I break a promise again, tell me quickly, so I can set it straight as soon as possible.”
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