There’s an old and irritating cliché that says, “...promises are meant to be broken.” Most of us have probably spent forever trying to figure out the legitimacy of this very sad statement. As the world rotates, so does our interaction with others. We meet individuals and groups who feed us with almost any kind of assurance. These pledges however impossible they may seem, tend to have some aura of completion especially if they are blurted out by people in whom we have given our trust and confidence. More often than not, frustration turns into disgust when expected things or events that are supposed to happen, always do not.
Let us try to understand first, why we make guarantees without really assessing if it is doable or not. Sadly, the reason is always the same: we always want either an instant exit or a quick fix.
To keep us from being annoyed, we comfort a crying child by swearing that we would be bringing home his favourite candy. We initially thought that this was the only way we could hurriedly make it to our appointments without breaking his heart.
To be able to avail of a much needed loan, we tend to make declarations of due dates well within the comfortable timetable of the lender. Today, we know that institutions who lend money no longer rely on how fast we can pay but rather on our capacity to pay.
Even our leaders seem to be beset by this phenomenon. They usually make declarations to satisfy allies and followers alike. Most of the time, these promises are not accomplished because they were done for the wrong reasons.
Any declarations, however noble they might be, are still subject to some form of scrutiny to guarantee its effectiveness. Raw decisions in reality cannot become national policy.
With this, we call on our leaders to begin dismantling their ideas of instant solutions to gigantic problems for we all know that these half-measures can never address the issues at hand.
We need arguments and decisions that are founded not only on the intellect but also on values based on life, love and spirituality.
What is also important is our resolve to correct whatever errors we made and the promise that it will never happen again. In other words, our leaders should always be ready to express regret for their mistakes like failing to deliver whatever they have promised.
To apologize and rectify our wicked ways has always been a time-honoured virtue. It is more acceptable than unethical. It is mostly right than wrong.
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