Anson's Random Dumps #4

Those with keen eyes should see a slight change in formatting today. Congratulations – you have great memory and eyesight; it’s also quite pointless pointing that out.

Another day, another uneventful day. Not being an extrovert, or a busy person (at least at the moment), this was expected.

Promises. 承諾 (Chinese). 約束 (Japanese). Those things we always assure people, that something is going to be taken care of. Or that something will certainly happen in one specific way. Or those wicked object types in JavaScript, but let’s not talk about those. Curse JavaScript! Or, rather, let’s talk about them. In a nutshell, promises, in JavaScript, are values that are unknown currently (think of it as an unfinished job), but will yield a value in the future (like a post-job report). When that happens, we consider that promise resolved.

Resolved. I love that word. It perfectly describes promises in real life. I guess you can say, when a promise becomes true, like when you promised someone you’d be back by 10pm, and you actually came back by then, then it is resolved. You call something resolved only if you got a solution for it.

But, how often do your promises actually get resolved? Are you a keeper of your word? Keeping promises is certainly no easy feat. Let’s talk about that Japanese again – 約束. It also means “to constraint”. When you make a promise, it’s like you’re setting a constraint on yourself. You’re limiting yourself, like hitching yourself, as if you’re a horse.

If you’ve been leashed, then your area of movement is limited. If you don’t make a realistic promise, then it’s like trying to get to a part of a game map that you’ve been locked out of. It’s just not happening!

I’m disgusted with people who make ridiculous promises. What is their end goal? To appease? To assure? More like to anger! People can just tell the truth. It doesn’t hurt them in the slightest, and helps the other person gauge the situation and make plans accordingly. I don’t understand what’s so harmful about this. And perhaps I’ll never know…

The only thing I know? Not to make over-the-top promises myself.

Anson