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Public Service Announcement - Truth and trust
Or maybe less public, and more "potentially useful to people who know me."
My worldview doesn't include much difference in the way of promises, oaths, or words of honor. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. If you say it, mean it. If a declaration of intent is foreseeably subject to change, it isn't that hard to say "I plan to be home at 7" or "I'll be home between 6 and 8" instead of "I will be home at 7." Of course, there is some wiggle room. For instance, in terms of ETA, I usually give an hour (if driving) or two (if on TriMet) of leeway before I start to worry. But if I've been worried without mitigation twice or more, I quit getting worried and start getting pissed.
I try to live up to my own standard, but I'm as human as everyone else, and sometimes I'm a flake. Hopefully I make up for it or at least find my apologies accepted.
I've said before: Any singular action can be forgiven; a pattern of behavior demonstrates character. I think that the vast majority of people are basically trustworthy. I believe most folks are truthful, and I believe almost no-one generally prefers deceit to honesty. Everybody I meet starts out with that much credit, that much benefit of the doubt. How fast and how far one falls in my esteem depends on how many of the things that come out of one's mouth turn out to be less than fully true and the extent of the fallout when something turns out to be untrue. There is a critical mass of untruth that causes one to be recategorized as Untrustworthy. After a recategorization, it is possible, I think, to reverse it. But it takes so much to become Untrustworthy, no one has yet accomplished a reversal.
When I worked at FEI, one of the critical points of selling bleeding-edge products was setting accurate expectations. If you want your customers to be satisfied with your product, their expectations must not exceed the product's ability to deliver. Similarly, if my expectations are too different from what I get, I get stressed (even if I'm getting something "better" than expected, I'm still stressed -- ask about my reaction to Dogma). I don't enjoy stress. Surprisingly, Untrustworthy people cause me less stress than people who are still being given the benefit of the doubt but who are not meeting my standard of "mean what you say." During the period of time where someone is on the road to becoming Untrustworthy, but hasn't yet reached a critical mass of untruth, I am stressed by the disparity between what I am told to expect and what I actually get. Recategorization alleviates this stress. When a person tips over into Untrustworthiness, I begin to overwrite what that person tells me with what I have learned to actually expect based on prior experience.
On the one hand, overwritten expectations tend to cause me less stress than than a broken promise. Nobody likes broken promises. To me, if I've not recognized any reason to believe a person deceitful (or just not self-aware enough to know when to use a soft declaration instead of a firm one), then any instance of disharmony between reality and expectation comes as an unpleasant surprise, causing stress, which leads me to relieve that stress in one of two ways available to me. On the other hand, it is disheartening to decide someone in my circle is unworthy of my trust -- and even less fun to repudiate a friendship.
My worldview doesn't include much difference in the way of promises, oaths, or words of honor. Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. If you say it, mean it. If a declaration of intent is foreseeably subject to change, it isn't that hard to say "I plan to be home at 7" or "I'll be home between 6 and 8" instead of "I will be home at 7." Of course, there is some wiggle room. For instance, in terms of ETA, I usually give an hour (if driving) or two (if on TriMet) of leeway before I start to worry. But if I've been worried without mitigation twice or more, I quit getting worried and start getting pissed.
I try to live up to my own standard, but I'm as human as everyone else, and sometimes I'm a flake. Hopefully I make up for it or at least find my apologies accepted.
I've said before: Any singular action can be forgiven; a pattern of behavior demonstrates character. I think that the vast majority of people are basically trustworthy. I believe most folks are truthful, and I believe almost no-one generally prefers deceit to honesty. Everybody I meet starts out with that much credit, that much benefit of the doubt. How fast and how far one falls in my esteem depends on how many of the things that come out of one's mouth turn out to be less than fully true and the extent of the fallout when something turns out to be untrue. There is a critical mass of untruth that causes one to be recategorized as Untrustworthy. After a recategorization, it is possible, I think, to reverse it. But it takes so much to become Untrustworthy, no one has yet accomplished a reversal.
When I worked at FEI, one of the critical points of selling bleeding-edge products was setting accurate expectations. If you want your customers to be satisfied with your product, their expectations must not exceed the product's ability to deliver. Similarly, if my expectations are too different from what I get, I get stressed (even if I'm getting something "better" than expected, I'm still stressed -- ask about my reaction to Dogma). I don't enjoy stress. Surprisingly, Untrustworthy people cause me less stress than people who are still being given the benefit of the doubt but who are not meeting my standard of "mean what you say." During the period of time where someone is on the road to becoming Untrustworthy, but hasn't yet reached a critical mass of untruth, I am stressed by the disparity between what I am told to expect and what I actually get. Recategorization alleviates this stress. When a person tips over into Untrustworthiness, I begin to overwrite what that person tells me with what I have learned to actually expect based on prior experience.
On the one hand, overwritten expectations tend to cause me less stress than than a broken promise. Nobody likes broken promises. To me, if I've not recognized any reason to believe a person deceitful (or just not self-aware enough to know when to use a soft declaration instead of a firm one), then any instance of disharmony between reality and expectation comes as an unpleasant surprise, causing stress, which leads me to relieve that stress in one of two ways available to me. On the other hand, it is disheartening to decide someone in my circle is unworthy of my trust -- and even less fun to repudiate a friendship.