Melody Beattie on Commitment

Commitment

Have you ever made a commitment and immediately realized you’d made a mistake? It was more than just cold feet. You had promised to do something you knew you couldn’t do.

One of the challenges with commitments is human error. We change our mind. It could be that we didn’t think things through. Or maybe one commitment we made interfered with another important pledge. For instance, if we’re married to someone who is on a destructive path, our commitment to that person might interfere with the commitment we’ve made to our children and to ourselves.

The idea of committing is often easier than fulfilling the commitment itself. Many of the things we commit to, such as raising children, require hard work.

CHALLENGE: The hard thing about commitments isn’t making them. It’s following through. Commitments require consideration–which ones to make, which ones to break, which ones to complete. It’s serious business, this commitment thing.

52 Weeks of Conscious Contact: Meditations for connecting with God, Self, and Others by Melodie Beattie