Of Promises & Letdowns

There is only one sure fire way of not being letdown and that is not to have any expectations. The moment you have an expectation you have opened the doors to hurt. But not to have any expectations seems humanly impossible. The next best thing would be to reduce the number of expectations.

The pain of letdown is one that I am familiar with, like just about everybody else. The pain of a let down pierces through the heart like a spear. It goes right through and through. Tears well up, the head feels light, the chest tightens…you’d almost think you’re getting a cardiac arrest. But no, it’s far worse than that. Sometimes the let down is followed by apologies galore, sometimes none whatsoever. At times the person doesn’t even realise he/she has let you down. And at times, they realise but couldn’t care less.

The letdown may be intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious but the fact is that it hurts. Some wounds heal soon after, some fester for days, weeks, months, years. Sometimes we feel the wound has healed and carry on with life till just a casual remembrance brings back that familiar ache in the heart and you realise you’ve far from healed.

But why is it that we make promises that we can’t keep? Why can’t we be more realistic when we give assurances? Why promise the moon when we can’t deliver it? Promises are easy to make but extremely difficult to keep. We are all aware of this, yet we keep promising, assuring and swearing and breaking not just the promises but hearts as well in the bargain. The breaking of a heart doesn’t make a sound but it crushes into a zillion pieces. The heart bleeds, it aches, it hurts. Then follow the dismal attempts at repair and damage control. We apologise, we try to make up in other ways or worse still we make yet another promise of never to repeat the breaking of the promise. And then alls well…till history repeats.

But what if you are on the other side? What if you are the one who has letdown somebody? Even then the pain is still there, provided you really care about the person. You apologise, you try to make up for the lost deed, you are ready to do anything to erase the lapse. But alas! It isn’t that easy. In this case your tail is in that person’s hand. If only that person takes the incident objectively and forgives and forgets, only then you can relax. Otherwise….woe betide!