Keep Your Commitments

If you say you are going to do something, then follow through. Sometimes we commit to something and then find that it’s inconvenient or we just don’t feel like doing it. We need to keep our commitments anyway – if we are someone who always cancels or never comes through, the message we are giving others is that they are unimportant (not worthy of us being inconvenienced).

The corollary to this is not to commit to something that you can’t do. Many of us are overcommitted, and can’t seem to say the word “no.” We end up overbooked and we frustrate both ourselves and others. There is no disgrace in saying that you cannot commit to something. There is disgrace in committing to something and then blowing it off. Sometimes extraordinary circumstances do come up, but sometimes we just change our minds about doing something.

When I was a teenager, I liked a certain boy but he hadn’t asked me out. A different boy asked me out and I said yes. Then, the boy I really liked asked me out for the same night, and I really wanted to go. My mother wouldn’t let me…she said that I had to stick with the first person I committed to. I moaned and groaned and said how horrible the date would be, but she wouldn’t let me off the hook. So I went out (reluctantly) with the boy who had asked me out first, and to my surprise we had a good time. Now, I still would rather have gone with the other guy, but I learned that I can spend a few hours with almost anyone and have a good time. And I learned that keeping a commitment is the right thing to do.