Blog Post #98 - Promises - the promises we keep and the promises we break decides who we are !

What did you promise today and to who?

While it is sad to hear that people don't keep up promises to others it is more ironical to understand
sometimes people don't keep up promises to themselves.

I consider resolution the same as promise.

From that perspective - each of us take up a new year resolution

and

we have always had a resolution to take up a resolution for the new year! 

(and somtimes the same resolution every year)

Most of us forget about them before Feb!

My Mom always used to

"Purana Virakyam" - the oath a (wo)man takes up after listening to or watching some inspirational stories and resolving to be ,do the same thing that made the character in the story great. What a vain , after few minutes we forget the these stories and lead our mundane life and wonder why we didn't turn out great.

Prasava Virakyam - when a lady gives birth to a child she vows never to have a child again because of the pain (with or without epidural) and few months to a few years later she is back for Prenatal tablets and new dress for new baby!

Smashana Virakyam - When a near and dear one dies we make promises on the smashana (creamation ground) or while delivering eulogy discussing about how great the person who died was - while thinking about how to lead a life that satisfies or exceeds expectations from this individual upon us. We soon forget that too!

Steven Covey in 7 habits of highly effective people discusses about the habit of beginning with the end in mind - making us imagine witnessing an Eulogy (or a discussion about your accomplishments) in the areas of family,business,society and other major facets of life. While reading this book I take up Purana Virakyam thinking I will follow this and become a great leader. While visualizing the content I take up Smashana Virakyam thinking about what people might discuss after I am gone.

As soon as I keep the book down , I break these promises and go about leading my life.
How about you?

In the book "Mindset - indset the new psychology of success" the author Carol Dweck has a great quote

Becoming is better than being!  

Think about it. Most of the time we want to be something and not become something. The reason we make these promises are to 'become'. But we love the state of being.

I am smart is something a person of fixed mindset says.
I will become smart and continue to strive to be smarter is something a person of growth mindset will say,

We mortals says I want to have Growth mindset and resolve to be good.  In other words we make a promise to follow or do somethings to get this mindset and not surprisingly we break it.

 Carol Dweck also quotes John Wooden

 'You are not a failure until you start blaming others for your mistakes'

Many a times we find promises being broken and blamed on others.

The common joke among smokers has always been -
"Who said I can't quit I have done it several times!"

When my son Arnav was 5 and was in some Karate class they taught him to fight bad guys. When I asked him who is a bad guys he replied

Check what people say and what actions they take.

 If the words don't match their actions they are bad guys!

Bless the teachers who taught these to my son. I don't know if he understood but I stopped making promises I can keep with him.

For the corporate world it means from emails to performance appraisals evaluate what you can really do and promise only those.

For the private happy family life - don't make promise to your spouse or kids unless you intent to keep it.

For your personal happiness - never promise yourself that you will do something that you don't intent to do.

Promise is what you want to be that you are not now. If you don't follow through you will be what you have always been !!!

Keep promosing and breaking them
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran