You can’t stand broken promises. When commitments aren’t kept, something deep inside you flares up—an old wound, still tender after all these years. Where does it come from?
Maybe it started that summer in Pakistan, when you were eight and cricket was everything. Your uncle promised you a bat—the one you loved, the one you imagined yourself swinging for a perfect shot. You went to sleep that night with excitement, only to wake up and find he was gone. He had left for London without a word, without the bat, without even considering what his promise meant to you. Did he even mean it when he said it? Or was it just something to say?
That moment stayed. Not because of the bat, but because something in you learned that words can be weightless, that people say things they don’t mean, that commitment can be a casual thing to some. And yet, you never made peace with that lesson. You held onto the expectation that people should mean what they say. That if they promise something, they should follow through.
And maybe that’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s not something to fix. It’s just you—wired for reliability, drawn to people who honor their word, repelled by those who don’t. Maybe that’s why trust, for you, isn’t about grand gestures, but about the simple act of showing up, again and again.
Beautiful. I resonate strongly with this. Thank you for writing!
Thank you.