Those Aren’t Promises

Those are Lies

Photo Credit — Danny See Chuan Seng / Pixabay

The voice is always male, deep and reassuring, as the sleek, expensive automobile sweeps along laughably empty city streets. Every aspect of the mini-movie is calculated to enthrall viewers and instill the desire to own this machine that offers Freedom. You can envision yourself in control behind the wheel. Everything wrong in your life can be righted with this purchase. It’s the everlasting promise of America.

Freedom.

Cars have long been used to perpetuate the lie of American freedom. You, too, can just throw a few things in the trunk and hit the road. Express your inner Kerouac. But ask anyone stuck in rush hour traffic how free they’re feeling. And, sure, you could use that car to run away from home. How far do you think you’ll get when you don’t show up for work Monday and you’ve maxed out the credit cards?

It’s not just cars that promise what can’t be attained by buying stuff.

Home ownership is another lie. Owning your own home does not automatically ensure financial security. Ask the 1.6 million people who lost their homes to foreclosure in 2010.

Now yes, many people do manage to achieve financial security by investing in real estate (and they work their backsides off to achieve and keep it). Those people are investing in multiple properties including commercial and rental properties that provide income. What we’re talking about here, however, is the promise that owning your own home will somehow guarantee financial security. What it will guarantee is a lifetime of paying bills or risk losing the house as well as all the headaches associated with owning something that needs constant work and eats money like it’s candy.

Certainly, there are those who grind along through all those years, paying the mortgage and taxes and repairs until they own their home outright. It no longer belongs to the bank. It’s all theirs. Ok, so it’s usually about the time that the boiler goes south or the roof needs to be replaced, but hey, now they have that holy grail of equity. Which, yes, does provide a measure of financial security. So it can be done. Usually takes thirty years to do it, but I guess that means it’s not a total bald-faced lie.

Except that so many people go into foreclosure or find themselves paying a mortgage and property taxes on property that’s losing its value that that promise of financial security can smell a lot like a lie. And then the basement begins to leak.

It’s not just the big, pricey things whispering sweet nothings into our ears either.

Women — and increasingly men — spend exorbitant amounts of money on creams and lotions and cosmetics and even surgery to feel beautiful and confident. We go to expensive colorists to banish the gray from our hair and apply expensive creams to our faces every night to stave off the signs of aging. There’s always another magic formula that promises to erase wrinkles, smooth away unwanted weight, and return the vigor and energy of youth. What’s today’s lesson everyone? Those are lies.

Worse, they’re sneaky lies because for about twenty-five minutes they seem to do what they promise.

But they can’t stop time. And time is always going to win. No matter what we spend or how hard we work with the trainer or how many hot yoga classes we endure, time will always be waiting. And quietly turning more hairs gray or just letting them fall out altogether. And adding pounds. And carving new wrinkles.

But these false promises power our economy.

Our domestic economy requires that people be invested in pursuing these promises. Increasingly, the global economy is also tying its pony to the wagonload of lies that are so appealing to people who have moved past the basic needs of food and a non-leaking roof over their heads. Hey, if everyone in the United States gets to drive their own car why can’t everyone in China and India do the same? What could go wrong?

But let’s understand that all promises aren’t being dangled just out of reach of our checking accounts.

Take for example that will-not-ever-die “promise” of true love. I bought it. You probably did, too. From childhood, we’re all fed a non-stop diet of movies, pop songs, novels, and Hallmark Cards that insist we are not complete until we find our soul mate. As the songs and poems have it, we are only fulfilled once we find that one true love. You may be having some doubts about this state of affairs. Allow me to reassure you that it’s a lie.

Another whopper? That being single and living alone is miserable, lonely, and to be avoided at all costs.

For more years than I care to admit (12), I stayed in a dangerous and abusive relationship because I’d been brainwashed into believing that the worst thing that could possibly happen to me was to be — cue the minor-key cello here — alone.

How old was I when that ghastly fate finally caught up with me? 38. I was 38 years old before I had my own apartment in which I lived by myself (with a cat, of course). Ask me how bad it was.

It was fabulous! I can’t even describe how wonderful it felt to come home at the end of the day and close the door so that I was finally by myself. I read when I felt like it. I ate what I wanted. I arranged the furniture the way I liked it. I went to bed when I felt like it. I went out with who I wanted when I wanted. I was fully able to take excellent care of myself. I didn’t need a soul mate to complete me. I was already complete. I looked that lie in the face and giggled.

And 25 years later I met someone who didn’t complete me but has enriched my life in ways I never expected. Not a soul mate. A lover and amazing friend.

We live in a society that perpetuates layers of “promises” and, for the most part, we accept that by doing certain things in certain ways we’ll get the goodies. There are a lot of things that people who want to cash in on the promises “should” be doing.

We should strive to have a career and rise to the top of it.

We should have children.

We should own a house and several cars.

We should wear this but not wear that.

We should watch our weight.

We should network.

We should establish a morning routine and adhere to it.

We should give to charity.

We should own the latest electronics.

We should go to the gym regularly and limit our carbs.

We should make sure to be in bed at the same time every night.

We should invest in the stock market or real estate or both.

We should floss our teeth every night.

And each should in this list comes with its own set of promises. Yet, most of those promises are either contingent on things outside of our control or simply outright lies. Having a career doesn’t guarantee security or prestige. Having kids doesn’t mean you’ll have someone to visit you in the nursing home. Watching your weight and getting to the gym like it’s a religion won’t necessarily keep cancer away.

I’m not saying that some of those shoulds aren’t good advice. Eating well, getting enough sleep, giving to others are all ways to enrich our lives. But there are no silver bullets.

People do everything right and still die of complications during a routine appendectomy.

So don’t buy the car thinking it’s going to set you free. Don’t plunk down $10k and expect that tummy tuck to solve your body image issues. Don’t eat ramen every night so you can afford the down payment on a condo that may or may not be worth more next year. Don’t spend a fortune on fertility experts thinking that your life will be meaningless and without purpose unless you have a baby. Don’t buy into the lies.

Make your decisions based on realistic sets of outcomes and understand that sometimes the results are not what you expected or planned. And, here’s something that came as a shocker to me: sometimes the actual outcomes are better than the ones I was aiming for. Go figure.

You want to invest? Go for it. But don’t do it thinking it’s guaranteed to set you up for life. Maybe it will. Maybe it won’t.

You want to be a parent? Take the actions and live with the results but don’t expect sunlit montages of happy toddlers and high-fiving tweens. There will be vomiting and late-night crying and slammed doors and worse. There could also be unexpected shining rays of joy. Don’t count on that last bit, though.

Your heart is set on being a lawyer? Do the work but don’t expect career success to fill any aching voids at 3 in the morning.

Determined to own a Jaguar? If it’s in the budget enjoy but have a good mechanic on speed dial. And if it’s not in the budget, treat that Toyota like a Jag and be grateful every time the ignition turns over.

Cross-stitch this onto a sampler to hang over your sofa: There Are No Promises. When we approach any of these decisions with the understanding that there are no guaranteed outcomes, that we aren’t about to be jettisoned into the realm of angels by choosing this car or this house or this partner, life gets a lot less stressful.

So watch for those promises. They’re everywhere. And they’re almost always lies.

Have some apple crumb cake and take a nap. I’m going to.