free will

"You mean I don't have a right to expect - or at least hope - that other people will keep their word?

Why would you want such a right?
The only reason that another person would not keep their word to you would be because they didn't want to - or they felt they couldn't, which is the same thing. And if a person did not want to keep his word to you, or for some reason felt he just couldn't, why on Earth would you want him to?
Do you really want someone to keep an agreement she does not want to keep? Do you really feel people should be forced to do things they don't feel they can do?
Why would you want to force anyone to do anything against his will?

Do you really think if you force another to keep a promise that you will have escaped injury?
I tell you this: More damage has been done to others by people leading lives of quiet desperation (that is, doing what they felt they "had" to do) than ever was done by persons freely doing what they wanted to do.

When you give a person freedom, you remove danger, you don't increase it.
Yes, letting someone "off the hook" on a promise or commitment made to you may look like it will hurt you in the short run, but it will never damage you in the long run, because when you give the other person their freedom, you give yourself freedom as well. And so now you are free of the agonies and the sorrows, the attacks on your dignity and your self-worth that inevitably follow when you force another person to keep a promise to you that he or she does not want to keep.
The longer damage will far outweigh the shorter - as nearly everyone who has tried to hold another person to their word has discovered."
-quotes :o