The question is catchy, since it’s impossible not to make them. Humanity is based on the agreements we reach. They are the frameworks, the laws, of our relationships, of cooperation. Nothing that we use in our daily and modern life lacks a history of agreements behind it for its manufacturing, for example. Nothing that we do in our life as a community could have existed without agreements.
Agreements arise from the promises we make to others, and the promises that others make to us. It doesn’t seem like a complex thing, however, we are not always that clear in our relationships when we make a promise or when we DON’T make one. If so much that happens in our daily interactions is full of assumptions, let’s imagine (or remember past experiences) where someone thought we made a promise when we actually weren’t.
For promises to be effective they must be kept. Pretty obvious, right? Well, if we go over our past experiences and of organizations that we know, we’ll see that it’s not so evident. Once a promise is a clear-cut promise, many things can happen for it to be broken. And many times we just don’t say anything and we’re not that clear as to the changes that we need to make in order to come through.
Basically, agreements are the pictures of accepted promises, which allow us to foresee certain actions in the future, and that’s why they help up live better together. They are part of our micro-worlds as individuals, our families, and also of organizations, companies and countries. So here are some questions to make ourselves: What are our agreements as a society or in our families? How do we handle unkept promises? What kind of agreements can we make in our lives to create the society that we want?
Versión español
Photo by Marcelo Chagas, edited by eliszein
