PROTECTING VOWS, THE ONES YOU MAKE AND BREAK

Doesn’t ‘protecting vows’ sound like something a fraud would say?

“You protect those vows, boy, while I work the crowd.”

Eventually the whole idea turns into another ‘gray area.’

But it shouldn’t, and here’s why:

Golden Rule Vow: “Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.”

Since I’m not re-writing The Bible here, I didn’t use the biblical quote. But it means the same thing.

This is the ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too’ vow. You can try, and that’s the problem.

You can’t be a jackass then get all butt-hurt when you get the same jackassery back.

If you go out of your way to be mean and cruel because ‘that’s how you get things done,’ then you’re done.

At the same time, if you whine and complain when someone treats you poorly, you’ve either got mental problems, social problems, or both.

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For instance:

I’m working on a project that requires meetings, deliveries, and writing checks.

Twice I’ve been left waiting. And waiting. Last night it lasted two hours waiting on a refrigerator delivery when I had plans the coincided with the original delivery time.

But I waited. Without fuming. It’s a special skill that takes practice. Call it protecting vows of self control.

When you have plans that take precision planning, and one part takes too long, everything else gets thrown off. Sort of a ripple effect, a domino effect.

Then you’re left with new problems.

One of them doesn’t have to be YOU!

The refrigerator showed up two hours late, maybe three, because the guys got stuck on an installation at another house. That was their story and it worked for me.

If you’re pushing for a project to stay on time, some parts of it can feel like a waste of your time.

So do something positive, something constructive. After all, it’s three hours all to yourself, like flying to Chicago with an extra half hour added.

Stay occupied and on track. Don’t be a hurdle for others to try and jump over. They’re not any better at jumping than you are.

Protecting Vows, Wedding Vows

Traditional wedding vows are old and stale . . . right up until they come out of your mouth.

Then they’re frightening and breath taking.

And they should be. Getting married is supposed to be more than a date, more than a game of musical chairs.

One way to of protecting vows is making a vow with someone to protect wedding vows:

“If you cheat on your wife I get to punch you in the face.”

It could work. Another way is learning how hurtful broken wedding vows can be.

Take it from me, there’s little worse than hearing an elderly women explain their cheating husbands.

And why they stayed with them.

In my opinion, none of us are in the business of telling others how to live their life. That we don’t all interpret vows the same is part of life.

But a serial cheating son of a bitch who throws it up in his wife’s face is no way to live.

And neither is a cheating man’s promise to get a divorce after his cheating girlfriend’s divorce.

Instead of following suit, try protecting vows that matter.

What’s a woman supposed to do when she hears, “I’m married, but my wife doesn’t understand me. And besides, I’ve never really ‘loved’ her.”

Then there’s the other side with, “why don’t you come up and see me sometime big boy.”

Protecting Vows One At A Time

If you screw around too much with too many people, you might get chased up a tree by a climbing dog.

You’ll be the star of a story that starts with, “Things were going good until they showed up.”

Whoever ‘they’ might be, they’ll show up. They always do.

It’s a relative who puts on the red hat and buys a gun because, ‘shit ain’t going down on my watch.’

Call it the maga vow.

It’s the friend who said, “I’m opting out of this friendship.”

You can decide if you’ll hang with them when the time comes.

I asked for help when my time came, and it sounded like this: “Don’t think you’ll change them once they make up their minds. Even if you do, you’ll always wonder when they’ll change again. You have other priorities than perusing doomed relationships.”

Made sense to me. Instead of spinning in frustration wondering what happened, what you must have done or said, protect the vow of personal peace.

If you don’t do that, there’s a dog out there waiting to chase you up a tree and bite your ass when you come down.

Dogs have vows, too.