WARP EIGHT IN THE SLOW LANE *** COMMITMENT ***
In case you hadn’t noticed, most of mankind is generally unable to make a decision. This is especially true if the decision to be made will involve any or all of the following:
1. A personal investment of time, emotion and intellect.
2. A long-term requirement to deny ourselves anything.
3. Entrusting our destiny to something beyond personal control.
4. The possibility of failure.
In short, we are unable to make commitments, in matters large or in matters small. This is often because we are unable to make the first and sometimes hardest commitment: to ourselves. Any commitment requires a great deal of data, and the first data needed is self-knowledge. If we do not know who we are, or what we want and need, then a commitment to anyone or anything else becomes impossible. And if we do not know why we are who we are, we can’t properly filter the incoming data on any other subject.
Just one example. How many people do you know who say they want to weigh less than they do, whether through real need or personal desire. And then think just how long they have been saying that, and what actions they have taken to meet the goal. Usually, only three things are required to lose weight: a lesser intake of food, a greater amount of activity and a commitment to both.
If people cannot manage this rather simple commitment to themselves, how can they be expected to deal successfully with the more important emotional and intellectual commitments they say they want or need? There is every chance that the people who say they want to weigh less are simply responding to social pressure, and don’t really want it on a personal level. In short, they are not yet sure what they personally want, because it is much easier to accept the mores of society than it is to do the internal research required to find out what they want.
This is one of the prime problems with our cookie-cutter society. People take the easy way out. Society provides rules. Religion provides rules. Government provide rules. It is easier to just accept the rules that are there than it is to assess ourselves and determine a personal set of standards.
Most of us are simply not strong enough to sift through these rules and choose those which are right for us. Nor are most of us able to integrate our own needs into a personal set of standards. We are unable to commit even to ourselves, and if we can’t commit to ourselves, we certainly cannot commit to another person, or to a cause, or for that matter, to anything.
That is very sad. The great and wonderful things in life require commitment. And most of us will never know the great joys and the great sadnesses of life, because we cannot bring ourselves to make the commitment that they require of us.
Kermit []