When you refuse to honor a contract, don’t expect the other party to be any different…

There is a reason many people resort to forming a contract about any type of agreement they make with other people. No matter how much we might want to trust certain people, we all learn in one way or another that people are unpredictable. If we only put our trust in them, without any guarantee that they will live up to their word, we are only going to get hurt in the end. It is much better to have a set, binding contract to back up any agreement with legal repercussions. As long as everyone lives up to their end of the deal, there is no reason for anyone to get hurt in the process.

So why is it that when people fail to live up to their end of the deal, they still expect the other party to respect the agreement?

If you didn’t honor a contract, well, then the other party won’t either. As soon as you go rogue, they have a whole legal document that allows them to act accordingly. And if you’re even a little bit surprised to find that there are consequences to your actions, that is completely on you.

The neighbor below didn’t honor his contract with a landowner who agreed to rent some of his field. There were three clear terms in the contract that the neighbor had to honor, and he failed to follow all three of them. When he failed to follow the most basic term, pay his rent for the field, the landowner had no choice but to take back ownership of the fields. Despite the acres of corn the neighbor planted on them, the landowner decided it was time for them to do so, especially since, according to the contract, the neighbor was supposed to harvest them already.

When the neighbor discovered that his refusal to honor the contract led to the demolition of his cornfields, it is safe to say he was not happy…