I believe that people let you down.

In fact, I believe we are let down at least once every week and I believe we are the ones that let others down as well. But hey nobody's perfect right?

Everyone's heard the phrase “I promise” or “oh don't worry I'll be there” but these are the most frequent lies out there.

People always make promises but it's more likely that those promises will be broken than kept.  For example, people “promise” that they'll come to see your show or performance or whatever, and then are nowhere to be found in the audience. What good is a promise if it's just going to end up being broken anyway? And why do people make promises they can't keep?

I'll give you an answer. It's because that's how people are. Promise is just a word we throw around.  We say it to make the other person think we mean what we say. It's the only way we know how to sound genuine. If we kept the promises we've made, the word would actually mean something but we don't so it doesn't.

We always wonder if the person who made the promise is going to follow through. I believe that a promise is a promise and should be kept.

Now being let down doesn't just apply to broken promises, it has a lot to do with our own expectations of each other. 
Everyday when my parents come home, I get excited because I get to tell them all the amazing things that happened in the day, or at least that's how it used to be. Or maybe it's never been that way and I've never noticed. But now I realize that all we ever talk about is school, and I find it hard to talk to them about anything.  I hear my friends talking about how close they are to their parents and I think about my parents and I'm not sure I can say the same, which is a total let down. But you see, hearing all those things from my friends made me have expectations, and because of those expectations, I was let down.

I believe that the reality is that we are just letting ourselves down.  If we don’t have expectations, we can’t be let down.  Now I’m not saying to never have any expectations for things or people, because without expectations how are we supposed to know what we’re looking for, or what we think is acceptable, or what we deserve?  I’m just saying that we can’t feel bad because someone didn’t meet our expectations.  Why do we have such high expectations anyway? Don’t we ever learn that not all expectations can be met, especially when it comes to people? No, because we are human. 

People let you down, and that's inevitable, but we can’t let that get in the way of seeing the good that comes out of it, as well as the good in people.  If my parents didn’t constantly talk to me about school, I probably wouldn’t care so much about my grades, or getting good ones for that matter.  And, when people say they’re coming to see your presentation or performance, but don’t, we get to rub it in their face that they missed out on one of the best performances you’ve ever done, or you could be nice and say you messed up a few times so it’s okay that they missed it . But we have to realize that sometimes people are busy and we have to forgive them, especially if they made it to our other performances.  If the person for some reason is always a no show, then we have to take it as a learning experience and not expect them to show up.

People are like elevators.  They bring you up, only to bring you down. Sometimes they don’t work at all and you have to take the stairs, making you have to work harder. But, even though we are let down in our lives, we can learn from it and at least try not to do it to others. After all, we know how much we hate being let down.