Commitment

The word commitment means to do, to pledge, to covenant, to promise and to contract with yourself, and at times, with another person. True commitment means that when you give your word it is your bond. When you say you will, you do. Commitment means consciousness, awareness, honesty, and a willingness to be responsible and do hard things.

The meaning of commitment assumes that whatever it is that I commit to will become difficult and challenging and that I will stay in my integrity and move with the commitment, no matter how difficult it becomes (barring abuse).

Our world has lost touch with the true meaning of commitment. We commit to our ourselves, friends, institutions, relatives, relationships, spouses, partners, children, etc. and many of us, much of the time, don’t think twice about the meaning of commitment and what it truly means to commit to another person. When life, or relationships, or jobs, or marriages, or anything else becomes uncomfortable we foreclose on our homes, our relationships, our spouses, our children, our work, our environments, we file for bankruptcy, etc. We do not even recognize the lack of emotional connection we have to the commitments we have made. We oftentimes feel justified in breaking our commitments with much casualness.

Shame tells us that if our commitments become too hard and too uncomfortable, then we have trap door we can slip through and we can get out. The Truth is that commitment assumes the experience will become challenging and uncomfortable, and commitment means that I commission myself to follow through, entirely regardless of difficulties.

We must learn to commission ourselves to stand erect and immovable when life becomes uncomfortable, uneasy, difficult, unpleasant, disturbing, distressing or fearful. These are the very experiences that build character and emotional, physical and spiritual stamina. These are the experiences where the stretching happens and the emotional and spiritual maturation takes place.