Our word of the month is dependability. All of us know that if we are dependable then we keep our word, we follow through on our promises. In our day to day life we make promises to others all of the time. In fact many times the promises just slide off our tongue very easily and before we have thought it out completely.
Many times that happens most often with our friends and family. Why is that so? I believe that we take for granted that they, because of our relationship with them, will ‘forgive’ us if we do not keep our promise just the way we said it or at least they will be more understanding.
Is that really fair to them though? What is the long term effect if we make this a practice? I know as a parent that when our children said they were going to do something and they did not follow through it was disappointing. Then when we asked them to give their word again we would ask them again and again. (that can be annoying for both the child and the parent) If it is a really big issue, like what time will you be home or if your home work is complete, it could lead to losing privileges.
We have talked about this many times too that we may also lose the trust of the other person. If you are a child reading this – there is nothing that is worse than losing the trust of your mom and dad. Do everything you can to maintain that trust.
One more part of this puzzle too. When you do not keep a promise there is the feelings that you have about yourself. Do you know that feeling I am talking about? That guilting feeling? The one that everytime you see the person you promised something too you just cringe. That has a long term affect that I will talk about later. But for now we can all work on keeping our word and doing so as quickly as we can after giving it to another person.