Rules for Promises
- by Pixel
I haven’t broken a promise in the past ten years. It’s very important to me. Probably more important than my life or other silly things. My moral outlook is somewhat inconsistent with this, but I find that I need to have a word of gold to make sense of my life.
So I have these rules for myself. You can follow along with me, if you like. I find it’s been very helpful in my life to distinguish between things I say, which are very likely to be true except in cases where feelings or fortunes depend on their falsity; things I say I’ll do, which generally always happen, but can fail do to circumstances beyond my control; and things I promise, which will always be kept.
- Don’t make promises often. This is key. Promises have to be special or else they’re not worth their breath.
- Remember your promises. Keeping the first rule will help with the second. But even so, keeping track of what you agree to do vs. what you promise to do is crucial.
- Don’t make promises that depend on circumstances. You can’t control the world, no sense promising things that depend on it.
- Don’t make promises that depend on other people’s actions. This is why I will very likely never get married. (Nor do I have the desire to.)
- Never make a promise that’s been requested. When people find out that I don’t break promises, every once in a while they try to get me to guarantee something will get done by asking me to promise it. This is horrible. It cheapens promises and puts you in a tricky position to either deny the request and imply you won’t do something or accept the request and risk breaking your word. This rule is your way out.
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I haven’t broken a promise in the past ten years. It’s very important to me. Probably more important than my life or other silly things. My moral outlook is somewhat inconsistent with this, but I find that I need to have a word of gold to make sense of my life. So I have these…
I don’t think I’ve even *made* a promise in the past ten years… for many of the reasons you describe above.
My rule with promises is there’s too much shit in life that can get in the way with keeping them. So my policy in general is never to make a promise unless it’s a life or death situation which truly compels you to keep it, or unless the promise can be almost immediately fulfilled.