I used to think that living up to my promises is for granted, until one day that I had made a bad decision. I promised to do something that I don't want to do later on, but I didn’t realize my unwillingness at the time that I made the commitment. So how did it happen? What makes us unintentionally promise things that we are actually unwilling to do? Looking back on the situations where I have made those bad promises, I realized that they have certain things in common. One commonality is that I feel obliged to help out because of my relations with the people involved. Of course, no one has forced me to promise anything. In lots of cases, they didn't even mention that they would need me to do anything for them. But in many moments, I just felt the words came out of my mouth naturally. When my friends complain about their lives, I felt compelled to offer if there is anything I can do. If a friend talks about moving to a new place, and how stressful it ...