Do you believe that commitment means that you lose part of your freedom? That you will never be free enough to explore your options to the fullest? That you somehow will be limited to live your life in a specific place, doing one job, spending the rest of your life with one person only etc.?
Well I used to think about commitment the exact same way. I always preferred to think of myself as a free bird, able to live wherever I wanted to, doing whatever I wish, be with whoever I wanted to whenever I wanted to. I was terrified even at the sound of the word commitment.
While, yes, signing a contract is an obligatory type of commitment, the reason that stands behind this is not. While marriage is a formal declaration of your commitment to one person, the reason you are getting married isn’t.
If what you feel about commitment is that it will make you lose a part of your freedom I think it means that in some way you are committed to the idea of freedom that has been created inside your head.
While growing older, what I realized is that commitment does not necessarily mean to sign a contract or to get married. Commitment is something much bigger, can be found in many aspects of our life and can set us free in so many ways.
1. Commitment to a Bigger Purpose
To commit yourself to a bigger purpose is what can help you make your dreams come true. Commitment in this case is the fuel that makes you keep going no matter what. It is the dedication of yourself and your energy to something bigger.
Commitment is what is behind every Olympic champion, every great scientist or every great artist. In this case commitment is what can set your mind free to dream the impossible and make it happen.
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
Albert Einstein
2. Commitment to a Person
Commitment to one person could be terrifying thinking that you dedicate yourself to one person only. But if this one feels like the one for you, why would that be a bad thing?
Having found a person that feels right for you and making the decision to commit does not mean that you lose all those you have not met yet. It means that you set yourself free to explore yourself along with the person of your choice.
“True love – that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy – is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances”
Mark Manson
3. Commitment to a Job
During our life most of us go through several different jobs from package delivery boy / girl to office employees or freelancers. Most of us can perform well in different kinds of jobs, all of which offer us something.
Commitment to a job that offers some money can offer financial help to pay our rent and bills, to a job that offers much more money can offer us financial freedom to do whatever else we like, even if it means just wasting money. Financial freedom could mean anything.
Commitment to a freelance job means that you commit to your choice of being free to choose the jobs you decide to do, meaning that from that point on you would be the absolute responsible for your working life. No boss to put the blame on.
4. Commitment to a Choice
Sometimes the exploration of different choices could turn out to be an exhausting research of the extraordinary. There comes a point when a specific choice is enough.
We might proceed and check what else is out there that might be waiting for us but yet we do know what we want. In this case ignoring what we feel and know is the right thing for us for the sake of exploration could be one of the stupidest things to do.
5. Commitment to a Place
You might feel the need to travel and live in different places of this world, and this is great because understanding different cultures and civilizations is something priceless that helps our mind think under different aspects.
However, at some point you might decide to drop your anchor in one specific port. To make a decision to live your life in one specific place can set you free to explore everything this place has to offer, everything you can offer to this place and even more.
Conclusion
Generally, commitment is not something that we are forced to do. To commit to something or someone means that you make a choice and the reason behind this choice is usually our desire to give depth to our choice and to set ourselves free in some way.
Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it’s a relationship, a business or a hobby
Neil Strauss
How about you?
How do you feel about commitment?