Week 90 - "The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it" — Henry David Thoreau
Sorry for the hiatus. After some reflection, I’ve made the decision to publish only when I feel I have something truly valuable to share, rather than on a set schedule. Thanks for understanding :)
Commitment is terrifying.
Most of us know that the path to what we want lies in some combination of consistency and dedication, but if you remove that “goal line” for when you can take stop or take a break, it becomes a lot scarier. After all, no one knows when they’re going to die.
Even now, if you asked someone to do something that took just a minute every day for a week, they'd probably have no issue with it. For a month? Sure, why not? A year? Doable but challenging. Five years? Ten? The rest of their life? Suddenly, it feels impossible.
For some reason, the idea of committing to anything indefinitely feels heavy. Whether it's a job, place, or person, the thought of a lifelong commitment often drives us away from making them.
And it’s odd because no one knows what the future will look like, so it would seem nice to have something you could always expect to be there. But in reality, I don’t think commitment is as simple as that.
Commitment is a two-way street. You can be fully committed to making something work, but if the other party isn’t, it’s meaningless.
So I get it.
Committing yourself to anything that doesn’t fully reciprocate feels futile, and after you’ve done it once, it feels impossible to do again.
If you’re logical, burning your hand once should be enough to learn a lesson. Yet, most of us need to be reminded every time what it feels like. But perhaps, that’s just how it goes.
Maybe it’s the difficulty of commitment that gives it value. That makes it actually meaningful, something that can truly anchor you when everything else is uncertain.
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