It is our human corruption that we often fail to honor the promises we made. I'm talking especially the minor, least important promises. The ones we would "reason" as jokes when we realized that we've failed to keep them.
I believe the very young ones would think otherwise.
There was a student of Confucius named ZengZi (曾子), one day his wife was going out, their son wished to follow and cried. She told him if he'd stay and wait for her, she would prepare a delicious pork feast for him. The child believed her. When she returned, she saw ZengZi sharpening a knife preparing to kill the pig, immediately she rushed to him and stopped him saying, I was only kidding around. ZengZi replied seriously, how can we lie to little children? If we're unreliable, he will not listen to us anymore in the future.
I remember I read that story years ago, it stuck in my head since. It is remarkable even today, many would think if the promise is "not too important", they have the right to break it.
I supposed if one is trying to be funny and joke around, he better make it clear eventually before too late. If he "thought" he was clear enough on joking about promises or any seeming truth, and made others paid the price, then he is still responsible even if he didn't know that others weren't aware that he was merely joking.
ALL Promises must be honored. We must be responsible for everything we do.
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