Prepared

Preparation; that's the key. I'm not talking about over-preparation either. It is very important to be ready for things.

Obviously, the level of preparation needed for various activities (get this) varies. I know people for whom it is impossible to do much of anything without preparing for every eventuality, planning each event months in advance, and generally being a massive kill-joy. Some of these people are mentally ill. I make allowances for that. But some of these people are suffering under the delusion that being prepared means never being spontaneous. These are people who should perhaps be pitied, because they are living in a fantasy land where everything can be foreseen and anticipated through planning. Perhaps we should look into going to this fantasy land ourselves. It doesn't sound altogether bad.

There are also people of another stripe who don't prepare for anything. They are children of chaos, free and formless. They may also be mentally ill. Usually, they are almost as tedious as over-planners to those of us who don't agree.

But both of these types of people should acknowledge who they are, or they become the third, least pleasant type of person: someone who isn't prepared when they say they will be. If you commit to a certain level of readiness, especially when people are counting on you, not achieving that readiness is unkind and far worse than never committing to readiness at all.

Now we all make mistakes, or commit to too much, or whatever, on occasion. When it happens, we apologize. If it doesn't happen often, people forgive us. But when people make it a habit of promising preparation but not delivering, that's not a good thing.

What can we do? Well, consider trying harder to keep promises, even ones we know people don't care about. And don't make promises you can't keep, or are unwilling or unlikely to keep. It's better to have to look for someone else to do something than have someone promise to do it and fail to deliver.

I sound like an advice column, but I am guilty on occasion of reneging on my commitments, and I feel guilty, but nowhere near as often as other people I will not name. Do us all a favor; take a commitment seriously enough to follow through on it. Doesn't have to keep you from having fun, but it does mean you should do what you say.