Then & Now: Commitment
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Investing in Commitment
I'm reading a book by Peter Buffett called Life Is What You Make It. I picked it up randomly at the library the other day during the six minutes I had to browse before the boys get bored and the library cop comes to me with Hampton since he's been playing with the water fountain. So four minutes then. It's a really on time find- he discusses career, and choices, and other cool life stuff. (The subtitle is Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment.) I love shit like this. It's kind of like a decoder ring.
Here's this quote: (attributed to Goethe)
"Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have occurred A whole stream of events issues from the decision raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
In the back of my head I've been pushing around my label. What I call why I don't drink. How I explain it. I don't feel like an alcoholic now. I don't feel like an addict now. I don't feel like I need to struggle and yearn for freedom every day because I am enslaved to something much more powerful that me. I don't feel like I need to promise myself that I can drink one day but just not today. That doesn't work for me. To me that's like the eat all your dinner and you can have dessert promise. Forced reward. Blegg.
Then I read that quote and zing. That's what you call what I'm doing. Commitment! Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. That was the problem all those times I tried to quit before. I wasn't committed. I was toe in testing the water, not jumping in letting the safety net close over me.
My sobriety has been entirely about readiness. I was not ready until I was ready. I was ready to commit. To make a promise to my lifelong partner (me!) that I would love and cherish her all the rest of my days. For richer, for poorer. In sickness and in health. For better and for worse. Is sobriety like getting married? Could be.
So I think that means I don't even have a label. I just have a promise. Between me and me. I'll worry about how to explain it when it comes up. It means that I cannot renege or hesitate. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. There are clear expectations. No one is wandering around in the dark looking for a wine glass because there will never be one. That makes me feel safe.
Ah. Take a breath.
Sometimes I want to have all the answers. And then sometimes I get one.
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Commit Meant
Marriage was how I got the notion of what commitment meant. My parents marriage during the time we lived in Danville, VA to be exact- most of my childhood. What I saw was two people who suffered because of one another. All the yelling, fighting, and silent treatments continued because they were committed. I will never forget the morning I woke up at 4am to the sound of them fighting down in the kitchen. Suddenly in the anger I heard something I’d never heard before: my father crying. Even this much pain would not break their commitment.
So commitment became bullshit to me. Commitment meant suffering. It was a sham. It was a lie people told to cover up the fact that change is hard, it was easier to stay in a bad situation than to end an agreement. I didn’t want anything to do with it.
I felt the absence of commitment in my life: it meant I didn’t stand for anything. I went with the wind, this way and that. I missed having ground to stand on. I wanted to commit to things, but I just couldn’t. Commitment was something I didn’t believe in. It felt like a trap.
I was gone by the time my parents marriage healed and they made it to the other side intact. I was out in the world with my flimsy belief systems regularly drinking myself into oblivion. I wanted to quit drinking, god, I wanted it so much. But I didn’t understand how to commit to something, and so I didn’t.
I didn’t understand that I actually was committed- to my own suffering. How could I do something else and not be letting myself down even though I was going to be saving my own life? The logic was not in the decision- it was more of a learned behavior that anchored itself into me. Many times I kept going with what was already happening because I didn’t know I was allowed to change my mind. My mind would stay small, my ideas would stay in this box of things that contained my commitment to the hurting.
Committing to me now means understanding worthy promises. It’s being willing to examine my life regularly and then being willing to adjust. I commit to that, then I am living in service of my own evolution rather than in service of things staying certain or the same. It means that I believe in something, and I’m willing to fight for it, and I’m also willing to give up on it.
There’s something so powerful in committing, I understand why it feels so hard. Even though I hated drinking and being hungover so much, it also gave me a reliable identity and daily instructions that I understood and knew how to execute. It was a committment.
Some days I am stunned that I have kept my promise to myself: I will never drink, never again. I understand now that these kinds of kept promises are what self trust is built on, and that self trust builds a life I don’t need to drink at. I keep all kinds of commitments now. Daily practices that support my well being, personal commitments to my integrity, my commitment to my well being, my healing, sobriety, my recovery.
After reading the post from 2013 I am reminded that the day I quit drinking I committed to my life. I married my future. I made the agreement that I wanted to live more than I wanted to drink. The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. Providence moves too.