To commit is to decide, and to decide is to cut off.
For most of my life, I have struggled with commitment. When I dig into why, I recognize that commitment scares me, not necessarily because of any potential harm that might come of it, but because it means saying no to options and opportunities that I know I would enjoy. It is the fear of missing out (FOMO) that I’m ultimately scared of.
But do you know what? Each one of us has already missed out—and will continue to miss out—on countless opportunities. It is the nature of living a singular, finite life. Life is too short to learn all of the things I want to learn and to experience all of the experiences I want to have. In one way, this is sad, but framed in another way, I ought to be immensely grateful that I have time to learn and experience anything at all!
The takeaway is that we ought to be intentional with the time that we do have, evaluate the opportunity costs of the options in front of us, and then commit to ones that maximize the values we care about.
Not deciding is also a decision, and this is a lesson that took me a long time to learn; unintentional inaction is the killer of dreams! While I believe I have become a better and quicker decision-maker over the years, I have decided to crank it up a notch this year. This is the Year of Commitment.
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The first significant commitment of the year, and one of the most significant commitments I will ever make, I made a little over two weeks ago: I proposed to my girlfriend. This engagement represents a commitment to starting a family and to taking care of each other through thick and thin.
I will admit that marriage has always scared me. I think this is because there were so few examples of happy marriages among the “adults” in my life growing up. But there were definitely a few.
When you find that partner who makes you a better person and who you can trust and confidently rely on, it’s worth foregoing other options, taking a leap of faith, and building a beautiful life together!
The second commitment of the year is my pledge to give 1% of my gross annual income to effective charities1. My fiancé and I took the 1 For The World pledge, and we’re sharing it here to make this commitment public.
While we both work hard and strive to make good decisions, ultimately, we owe the majority of our good fortune to chance. We didn’t choose the country of our birth or our parents, nor did we choose any of the other blessings that we’ve received.
The third commitment I’d like to announce is my commitment to building a homestead with my brother and one of my best friends. We’ve talked about and researched this project for a few years, and while the details still need to be sorted out, I’m committed to the vision we started with: a space amongst the trees where our close friends and family are always welcome, a launching pad for future projects, and a place where we can live out our final years of life.
I’m of the opinion that for a commitment to mean something, it needs to be more concrete than just words on a page or mouth sounds lost to the wind. It should ideally require a sacrifice or a pledge that is difficult to back out of. For now, words on a page will have to suffice but I will report back when the appropriate sacrifice or pledge has made.
Lastly, I am making a commitment to myself to continually jump off cliffs.
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again. - Abraham Maslow
I indulged in simple, fleeting hedonic pleasures for long enough to recognize that entertainment, pleasant bodily sensations, and altered states of mind are great but ultimately way overrated. What’s more, these simple pleasures are ultimately a distraction from the far more rewarding and satisfying goods that can only be earned not given. I think you know the goods to which I refer.
What commitment means to me might differ from what it means to you, but I hope I have shared enough for you to understand why I think it’s important, perhaps now more than ever.
To build the beautiful life I imagine, I need to embrace the power that comes from making commitments, and to embrace the values, people, and projects I cherish. I’m excited for what comes next!
1 I have been giving between 4% to 7% percent for a few years now but never made it public, not even to many of my friends and family.