Promises

Promises,

The word promise is used quite profusely in the English language. There are individuals in this world that take the word promise to heart and will do whatsoever it takes to keep that promise, and others who will promise someone the world just to get what they desire. If a promise has been made to someone, every effort should be made to fulfill said pledge. There is a very old saying, “a person is only as good as his/her word.” A promise was at one point in time considered a binding contract in the courts of law; therefore, there were solemn consequences for breaking a promise. This word has been used inaccurately for the last few decades. Since the early sixties, this word seems to have been “dummied up” for lack of a better phrase, it just doesn’t have the same meaning. Each generation has done its share to the English language. When a person knows the correct definition of a promise, they seem to use it less in the speaking.

In the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, Mortenson made promises to an array of influential individuals ranging from village elders to U.S. Representative Mary Bono. As an admirable man, Mortenson did everything within his power to keep his promise to whomever he had made the promise. A quote in the book eventually becomes the first day of the rest of Greg Mortenson’s life: ‘“I’m going to build you a school,” he said, not realizing that with those words, the path of his life had just detoured down another trail, a route far more serpentine and arduous than the wrong turns he’d taken since retreating from K2. “I will build a school,” Mortenson said. “I promise. (Mortenson33)” This man apparently knew the meaning of a promise. There seems to be very few people in modern civilization that would go to the lengths that Mortenson did to keep a promise to people half way around the world. Although very few words were spoken at that time, those words would change his life forever. That one promise meant immense things for both Mortenson and the Baltic people.

A promise was made to a five-year-old boy ten years ago after he’d called his father a liar after the original promise had not been kept to its end. I had quit smoking for a few months and had started up again; consequently, when my son saw me washing my truck with a cigarette lit and dangling from my mouth, he screamed from his bedroom window, “you lied to me.” A vow right then that I would quit for good and that was ten years ago, a promise that had been made and it is now being kept for the rest of my life.

In these busy times, people will promise to “call back”, or “stop by”, often times these little promises get broken without the person even realizing the words true meaning . With the changes in modern language, the word promise has become the new contemporary “we’ll see.” The English language has been drastically degraded in the last three or four decades and the improper use of the word promise, is only one of a multitude of words that are being improperly used lately, largely due to the change in attitude. The vast majority of the blame for these changes can be aimed at the hectic pace of our modern society.

Promise is a word that the vast majority of people in the modern world use all of the time without actually thinking about its meaning or content. The Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines promise as (gsr1) a. “A declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified. b. A legally binding declaration that gives the person to whom it is made a right to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of a specified act.” That is an intense phrase when a person takes the time to think about it. As a legally binding declaration, this word used to be up-held in courts across the country many years in the past. That was in a previous era.