Doing What You Say You’re Going To Do Is a Superpower

The trick is to match your promises to reality

Marilyn remains grounded — photo by author

My wife and I just wasted a perfectly good afternoon waiting for an art installer to show up at our Miami condo. I mean, my wife wasted the afternoon — I took a nap. I woke up two hours later to find Marilyn (our newest art acquisition) still frustratingly earthbound.

As life tragedies go, this was a solid 1 out of 10. But so unnecessary. The guy could have texted. Thirty seconds of effort to reset our expectations.

Instead, my wife sat around in a stew of mild irritation, pointlessly clinging to a reality that was never going to materialize.

We all do this. We say:

I’ll be there an in an hour.

I’m almost done.

I’ll call you back.

And then we’re not there. We’re not done. We don’t call back.

And what we’re really saying, underneath all the noise, is:

I don’t value your time. I’m not even listening to myself.

When someone shows you who they are, we’re told, you should believe them. And you should. But also: when you show yourself who you are, you should believe that too.