Closing The Ring:~You're never free from the promises that you make

“I promise you”….We are all very familiar with the long used phrase. This is a phrase that is used for centuries by many cultures with the intention of committing a number of people to a similar covenant. It’s very sole purpose is to remind the people in the same circle of the agreement made to each other. It could come in a form of pinky swear, or even in a form of a serious Holy Matrimony.

Last week, I manage to catch a movie goes by the name of “Closing the Ring”, which talks about a promise between two young couples during war time. A promise that says the both of them will always be a couple as one, and that they will always be one forever. However, the complications begin when the male companion fails to return home. On the receiving end, the female companion refuses to accept the fact that he is long gone, and still believes that he is still alive, and wait patiently for the day where he arrives to come.

You see, promise paints a very beautiful picture if it is fulfilled. Like how the Spanish like to put it, it takes two to tango. It requires effort and trust to pain this picture. When you make a promise, you don’t only sell your words, but your trust and dignity, a part of yourselves. On both receiving ends, you strive in everyway to defend your believe and at the same time, hoping that the other party doesn’t give up so easily, especially when it comes to a promise that is hard to keep.

As depicted above, a promise drives an individual to be very loyal to his or her own corresponding member. It drives them to push all the obstacles aside and remain focus of their main goal. Some call it naïf, but to the people who make the promise it’s a symbol of what appears to be more than friendship. Take a lecturer for an example; once he or she is tied to an oath, that is to teach and do a job well done, he or she has to make it come true at the end of the day. In a way, it raises the standards of the intended action and at the same time, reminding themselves that there is something more that that.

“You are never free of the promises that you make” that was the tagline of the whole movie. This phrase is very well said as a promise between two or more people is actually a very serious issue to address. The sad thing is, many contemporary citizens fail to understand its magnitude. As long as a promise is made, it can never be undone. It’s just like telling your wife that you accept her on day of marriage, and tell her that you have no feelings for her the next day. How would it make any logical sense?

A very clear example would be like Politicians making promises to their people. This in turn, provides a clear insight of how reliable this person is when it comes to manifesting his own words. While he is exposed on the outside making promises, you on the receiving end can observe and scrutinize him. We always rely on people who can live their very own words. It seems that promises makes the benchmark to whether a person is reliable or not. “See! He did what he promises. He’s a reliable man.” Sounds like a clichés to you, doesn’t it?

I think that when a promise is made, the content does not matter at all. However, what matters most is how sincere you are in committing that promise. You can make the world’s biggest promise and fail to live it through, not because it’s the world’s biggest promise, but simply because you never mean it in the first place.

Promise is a driving force that keeps that small flame of interest burning. It keeps us going when the going gets harder. We as individuals make promises in some ways or another. But the question that we have to ask ourselves is, “am I ready to take up that challenge to live through my words?”. In the movie “The Transporter 2”, the leading actor named Frank has a rule of his own when it comes to promise, which is “Never keep a promise that you can’t keep”. If you can’t keep a decent promise, you might as well just don’t make it in the first place.

So the question is, “Can you keep a promise?”

DJ online,
Damian Thomas Khaw