1 SIMPLE IDEA: The power of keeping promises — to ourselves

Commitments we make, particularly under duress, can be leading indicators of what we truly need to be more content.

This photo, taken yesterday, would never have happened if I’d broken promises made to myself twenty-three years ago this week.

On September 11, 2001, I awoke to an ordinary fall Tuesday in my lower Manhattan apartment. The sky was a brilliant blue and clear. Outside my window, the Hudson River glistened to the left. The World Trade Center towers stood to my right.

Joggers ran by breathing in the damp sea air. Workers streamed off the ferry, heading into the various office buildings downtown.

I sipped coffee and read the newspaper — a real newspaper.

The day spread before me, orderly and full of a routine built around my job as an editor and writer for The Wall Street Journal whose offices across the street were a mere 30-second commute. I generally woke up, crossed from one concrete sidewalk to another, worked inside, crossed back across the same concrete sidewalks and worked some more before going to sleep.

Sitting. Screens.

I was in the shower when I heard the first plane hit. The loudest thud. As if someone had dropped a cauldron upstairs. And the day exploded into a series of mental Polaroid snapshots.

A phone call from my best friend who lived nearby telling me to look out the window.

Seeing smoke streaking from the first tower.

Turning on CNN and seeing the second plane fly across the screen. Then hearing the roar overhead, an instant before the slam of impact across the street.

Throwing on clothes, grabbing a wallet, my reporter’s notepad, a cellphone.

Knowing two planes can’t be an accident.

Running out the door, never thinking to look back one last time.

Not knowing how much was about to change.

The promise

The first tower’s collapse was invisible.

What we all saw, were the giant smoke plumes rolling around the corners of buildings.

What we all heard, was a rumble, a deep, horrible, guttural noise as if the earth were growling.

Standing along the river, holding the guardrail, I saw men running by in boxer shorts carrying their briefcases. Baby carriages were abandoned in the throngs of fleeing people. So were high heel shoes.

When the second tower fell — again, that deepest growl — I’d reached the tip of Manhattan, still ignorant of what was unfolding as the relentless white dust storm of smoke consumed us.

I started talking to God. In the remember-me way that happens when I’m deeply scared.

And I made my promise.

That if I got out of this OK, things would be different.

I’d be different. Be better …. change somehow.

My promise was vague. But what I imagined — no, more like what I felt in my body’s cells — in that moment was not.

I felt trees. And a dog. And a child. And life where I didn’t put work first every single day.

I’d just turned 30. And none of those things were on the horizon.

And then my vague assurances sailed up into the smoke-filled sky to be joined by those being made by everyone else around me.

The idea

We know we should keep promises we make to others.

But I suspect we don’t always give as much heed to the ones we make ourselves.

And yet those commitments are the very things that actually have the power to truly change our lives for the better.

The big moments:

• What we promise ourselves when we’re waiting for a biopsy report.

• What we promise when we’re waiting for the phone to ring from someone we love. They are driving and not picking up when we call. We imagine the worst.

• What we promise after we’ve hurt someone we really love and are waiting to see if they’ll forgive us.

• What we promise we’ll finally tell a parent who has been rushed to the hospital, if only they hang on until we get there.

The smaller ones:

• What we promise when we drink too much alcohol once again, do something stupid, and wake up disgusted with ourselves the next day.

• What we promise when the clock turns from December 31 to January 1.

• What we promise when sign up for a gym membership on January 2.

• What we promise our families when we agree to one more business trip that takes us away from home.

These promises are like “leading indicators.” It’s a term used a lot in economics to predict future market conditions. These promises are our own leading indicators pointing in a direction of greater contentment.

If we keep them.

It’s not too late to start doing this.

September 8, 2024

Yesterday, I awoke early in a small rural town 50 miles north of Manhattan.

Next to me lay the person I’ve now loved for almost two decades, still asleep.

I got up. Made coffee and took the dog out for a short walk on our dirt road. There were wild turkeys. My dog chased a rabbit.

The downstairs room I’d hoped my son or daughter might occupy was, instead, my office. Life isn’t a movie. We don’t get everything we want in the end.

But my computer stayed closed all morning.

Later, I drove 10 minutes to the start of a trailhead. It was raining. I got out of my truck, put on my hydration vest, and started jogging.

My body warmed as I climbed and put in the miles. The rocks and ground were wet. I chose my footing carefully.

Alone amid the trees, my legs felt strong. My heart rate was steady. All I smelled was damp earth.

And at the top, I took this photo as the clouds hugged my chest.

And I gave thanks.

How I got from downtown Manhattan to my run this morning is a much longer story. I tell it in my first book Little Chapel on the River: A Pub, A Town and the Search for What Matters Most if you are interested.

It’s a story about how I got the chance to keep that promise I made 23 years ago.

Thank you for reading this newsletter today — and always.

Wendy