I participated in a Skype call with a man who looked utterly exhausted and miserable. āYou look terrible,ā I said.
āIām sick,ā he said.
āThen why are you not in bed, resting?ā I said. āWhy are you talking to me?ā
āBecause a couple of days ago I agreed to meet you at this time.ā
āAnd do you have other calls to make today? And visits with people?ā
āYes,ā he said, looking at the floor and obviously not delighted at the prospect.
āYouāre sick,ā I said. āWhy not just email them allāit would take very few minutesāand tell them that youāll get back to them when youāre well?ā
He explained that in his childhood family, making a commitment was a kind of blood oath. You never, never broke a commitment. Your word was your bond, and so on.
āWhat do you do for a living?ā I asked.
āIām an accountant.ā
āYou gather a great deal of information from your clients, donāt you?ā
āYes.ā
āAnd then you tell them how much theyāll have to pay in taxes, or what they should do for investment, and so on, yes?ā
āYes.ā
āYou essentially give them your word about what they need to do. You make a commitment to give them the best advice possible.ā
āYes.ā
āSo letās imagine that youāve already given your advice to a client, and youāve committed to file his taxes, for example, for a specific amount. But then he discovers another entire box of receipts and other information. Would that change your decision?ā
āOf course.ā
āSame here,ā I said. āThatās the whole purpose of continuing to gather information: to change our decisions. I once committed to quite a number of calls and other contacts with some people, but suddenly I was scheduled for serious surgery that would make it impossible for me to communicate clearly with people for several weeks. Should I have kept my commitment, or was I justified in changing it?ā
āHmmm, I think Iām getting the point.ā
āI hope so. We make commitments to do things based on the best information we have at the time. That's all we CAN do. If the information changes, sometimes the commitments have to change also. You were not this sick when you made your present commitmentsāto me and othersābut now you are. New information. Wisdom dictates that you change your course of action, or you could get even sicker.ā
āI think I can do this differently now.ā
All we can do is our best. Sometimes that capacity changes, so then we have to change our promises or commitments. We can do this because we are wisely using new information, not because we have no integrity, nor do we need to struggle with guilt and shame, which further diminish our capabilities.
Replace your anger & confusion with peace and happiness.
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