A Promise Is A Promise

Act 165:

“It’s never too late… To Keep Your Word

Your word is unbreakable. Make it unshakeable. Don’t promise if you can’t deliver. Always deliver if you promise.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “A few honest men are better than numbers.” ~ Oliver Cromwell

When I first saw this Act, I heard “Listen, Do you promise not to tell?" by The Beatles come into my head. Haha. When you are keeping your word, it doesn’t necessarily mean u are keeping a secret. But most of the time it does. Keeping your word could mean a lot of different things.

To me, keeping your word says a lot of things about you. It means that you have integrity. It means someone has trusted you or is trusting you. It means ur reliable. It means ur honest. I can’t say “always”, because I think that there was a time that I had to break my word for the “greater good”. But for the most part, I keep my promises. If someone tells me something and I give my word that I will keep it a secret, then I do.

Like I said the only time I can remember ever going back on my word is when it was a safety issue or a moral one. I’ve been in a situation when someone asked me to keep their secret, but I couldn’t because keeping the secret and my word meant that someone else would’ve been harmed or hurt. To some this may make me untrustworthy, but I think that anyone would’ve done the same thing in my situation.

One example (not mine specifically) is that a friend is raped by her boyfriend. Promising to keep my word about not telling anyone or the identity of the rapist to the police. I would have to break my word in that situation. If I’ve learned anything from the Penn State debacle. Telling and reporting to the police is the right thing to do. It may mean the difference between keeping my job of over 50 years or being fired and practically ruining my reputation. (haha… sorry CZ!! I know this bugs you) Again, I think anyone with a moral conscience and a good sense of what’s wrong and what’s right would agree. This is why I think so many people are so angry about what went on at Penn State. If you don’t know what I’m talking about – the short story is that a previous assistant football coach has been accused of sexually assaulting young boys in his house and in the showers at Penn State. It’s horrible.

Keeping your word is very important and a promise is a promise. Do you think that it’s ok to break your promise or to no keep your word if it’s for the greater good? If so, how do you know? What types of things do you think fall into this category? Do you always keep your word?