Commitment – Day 1

Who or what are you committed to, through good times and bad? What person or value do you cherish most? For a long time, the only thing I was committed to was using drugs. I began to learn about the value of commitment in treatment in 1973. The treatment facility suggested that I make the same commitment to sobriety that I had to using chemicals—take life one day at a time, but commit to sobriety no matter what.

Almost thirty years later, I was walking through my house, getting ready to do errands. Out of nowhere, the thought came to me. “I’d really like someone to take care of me for a change.”

“Well who wouldn’t,” I thought back to myself. Taking care of ourselves can be an overwhelming and exhausting job.

When I married my children’s father, I had some fantasies. I wanted a husband who would be a good provider. I would be a good wife. But I wanted someone to take care of me. As the years wore on and I wore out from taking care of everyone around me and not taking care of myself, I saw that that wasn’t going to happen. If I took care of everyone around me and didn’t take care of myself, nobody was going to notice and say, “Oh, look. Someone needs to take care of her.”

I was going to die—or get bitter—from neglect. I had made commitments to everyone around me—sobriety, my children, my husband—but I had forgotten to make a commitment to taking care of myself.

Sometimes commitments are a lifetime deal. We say I’m going to keep doing this, no matter what. Other times a commitment is a temporary one-time pledge of our energy or time. God willing, I’ll do this task, no matter what.

Many of us have found occasion to make a commitment, then change our mind. We thought a particular commitment would be good for us. But then that commitment conflicted with another commitment we had made.

Commitments can make some of us panic. Have you ever gotten cold feet after making a committed decision, such as buying a new house?

Commitments—big or small—require follow-through. Once we say “I do” or “I will,” it’s our job to either complete the task or let someone know we can’t. Some of our happiest moments come after going through the cold feet thing and still keeping our word. Some of the hardest choices we have to make are when we change our mind and say, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

Value: The dreaded C word—commitment—is the value this week.

From the book: 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact

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