Note: Some of my essays are modeled after the work of one of my teachers and inspirations, the poet David Whyte. In his book Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words, each chapter is a deep treatise and meditation on a particular “common” word, which when examined with thoughtfulness and care, becomes a gateway to greater understanding and compassion – for ourselves and the world we inhabit.
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Promise
is a double-edged sword. To be spotted for potential, considered “gifted” with talent is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing if the endowed is inspired by possibility and lives up to the expectations of the critics (aka parents, teachers, coaches, bosses, siblings, friends, the media); a curse if the select one falls short of the hope-laden prophesies or, God forbid, chooses her own path outside the parameters laid for her long before she knew the words permission and buy-in.
With all its reputation for opportunity, a label of promise can bind both coming and going. If one has promise, the journey-toward-the-future replete with continual progress checks (both from spectators and eventually hard-wired innards) is an annoying parrot sitting atop one’s shoulder, incessantly commentating, impossible to shut up. If one had (so much) promise, the silence hanging in the air at the end of that sentence soots the atmosphere with its soul-deadening disappointment.
For a deep sadness accompanies unfulfilled promise. Never mind that the Universe might have thought differently. To have had a gift and not brought it to fruition is as if to become a spinster in one’s own life, opportunity wasted, fecundity withered, the seeds of potential scattered to the wind. Quietly whispered among family, boorishly scrutinized by strangers, failing to live into and up to one’s potential is a condition upon which society feels entitled to comment – like pregnancy, like cancer – the community inseminating expectancy with malignancy while projecting its own fears of unrealized dreams and dying too soon onto its object of pity. Meanwhile, the mantra of not enough sears the barren from within.
Yet promise can redeem.
If you were lucky, any promise bestowed upon you when you were young, innocent, and green was delivered with an open hand, and like a true gift, with freedom as a hefty part of the package. Minus strings, you were bound neither by obligation nor expectation but had the choice to explore this treasure when and how you were inspired to do so. You could hold this seed, imagine its fruition, plan its cultivation, or even shove it deep into your pocket until decades later when you had tilled enough of the rocky soil of your own life to be germination-ready. No matter your choice, you were not thrown off (or under) the bus of “progress” but were still seen and held as one of possibility – good, capable, and full of… promise. In your past, in your present, and in your future.
Most of us are not that lucky.
Because despite our best intentions, we almost all have desires, expectations, and unfulfilled dreams that we project onto others. If I focus on your potential and whether or not you are on a trajectory toward reaching it, I can avoid addressing my own issues of purpose, achievement, and confidence (a key ingredient for accomplishing anything). It’s not that we’re bad people; it’s that we’re human, forever works-in-progress, imperfect in our attempts to inspire and motivate, encourage and celebrate. It takes conscious awareness and a good deal of letting go to operate from a place of non-judgment, non-jealousy, open-hearted positivity, and real generosity.
And, it takes abundance. An abundance of vision, an abundance of trust – in the timing of the cosmos and in the innate wisdom of our own and others’ precious unfolding. To see every moment as sufficient unto itself and to feel the satiety of enough spilling over our coffer’s brim, daily. To know promise as the embryo of every moment and our connection to this present as fertilizer for the next one. Non-commercialized, it takes un-negotiating gratitude and the silent, organic humility that springs from it to truly open to this unearned outpouring: to receive your gift on bended knee, head bowed as one knighted, blessed and charged with your hallowed mission, the one that makes you you, the one that makes you whole.
Is our promise a gift from the gods? Or our gift back to them? To whom and to what do we owe our promise? Is it an albatross around our necks or the wind beneath our wings? The thing that gets us up in the morning or that which keeps us up at night?
And most critically – are we willing to embrace our promise, to claim it, to own it? Despite the press, despite our fear, despite all the reasons why not, despite our chart-less-ness caught navigating this often mysterious journey toward an ever-receding fulfillment?
Do we have the courage to take that vow?
To make that promise?
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How to Make a Promise
The following poem is a mirror image to David Whyte’s To Break a Promise. You can see his original here.
To Make a Promise
Make a place of prayer, no less,
then lean into your red marrow
recall what you already knew
since birth, as a child, words
so simple and clear and warm as the sun
splashing the river, its waters
sparkling their invitation toward you.
Let your fears drop
each, one by one
the way a stone sinks to sand
the way ripples soon stop
returning to Silence
the way a real promise
breathes with no trace
leaves no question
for the world to make.
Now. Trusting, stand tall,
let your heart
carry this new life
and you, let your promise
sing with the river.
Have courage. Dive in.
Susan Drouilhet