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The things we promise ourselves


I have promised myself many things. 

 Of those many things, I have met with only a few.

 Of those few things, I have held on to fewer.

 With what is left, I press on and make more promises.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it a form of masochism in which we doggedly set ourselves up to fail? Over and over again. Perhaps, it is due to blinkered, naive, over-ambition. Or the vagaries of hope.

Whatever the cause, the reason - the tick that makes us repeat this folly - the solution is clear: we must stop making promises.

What promises have you made to yourself recently? Me? - the usual triad of getting fitter, eating less, losing weight; plus, never again embarrassing myself by screaming and in a distinctly unhinged and undignified fashion leaping around the room, after a spider crawls out of the pyjamas I am wearing. I also promised to write something every day; walk the dogs ... more, further, faster; submit (aargh! - the curse of the procrastinator strikes again); stop eating chocolate; drink no more than (but quite possibly right up to) my weekly recommended amount of alcohol; try to hate my work less; read the books on my bedside table ... some of the books ... okay, one of the books; squeeze in the odd trip to an art gallery, or theatre, or cinema, more regularly than seldom; understand my children's maths; learn Italian; and on the subject of learning, seek out and finally commit to memory the difference between practice and practise, round and around, fewer and less, affect and effect, etc etc. The fulfilment of some of these promises-to-self is impossible. Or if not technically impossible, then highly improbable ... chocolate! Honestly? What was I thinking!

We all make other promises that we hope to keep - the unsaid ones to dear friends moving away, that we will keep in touch; the publicly declared ones to love, honour, cherish; and the whispered ones into a child's pillow, that we will always love them. We hope to keep these. We certainly meant to, at the time they were made. But life sometimes gets in the way of the promises we make.

Do I believe in the solution - to stop making promises? Of course not. It is human nature to strive constantly to better ourselves, or at least to believe that we are capable of better. To this end, we convince ourselves that if we make a promise, we give ourselves the best chance of keeping it. In a sense, we are daring ourselves not to fail.

So, as long as the promises we make could be achieved, then we should keep making them.

We won't fail in them all. And if we fail in some - well ... chocolate is deliciously addictive and spiders are hideous.



When I was a child, I promised myself that when I grew up, I would have my own dogs. That promise was met:





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