‘In my old way of operating, I was very clear about my capacity to commit to something.  Commitment meant being highly disciplined in sticking with something…. This is the kind of commitment where you seize fate by the throat and do whatever it takes to succeed.  It was only later that I began to understand another, deeper aspect of commitment.  This kind of commitment begins not with will, but with willingness. … The underlying component of this kind of commitment is our trust in the playing out of our destiny.  We have the integrity to stand in a ‘state of surrender’, knowing that whatever we need at the moment to meet our destiny will be available to us.  It is at this point that we alter our relationship with the future.’…. Joe Jaworski, Synchronicity: The Inner Path Of Leadership

The most common meaning we give to ‘commitment’ attaches it to something – a circumstance, condition or result to which we give our focus and energy for ultimate success.  Through culture and upbringing we have been taught that this is our way to make it in the world.  We question and even criticize those who seem to wander through life and make their way inadvertently on the journey.  Is it really ‘inadvertently’?  Or does this approach expose a different perspective worth considering?

Alternatively, we might distinguish commitment as the way in to who and what we are.  From this vantage point, it is NOT what we do.  It is NOT the agreements, contracts, goals,  objectives, mission, vision, or values we are dedicated to or obligated to achieve.  This version of commitment does not live in will, determination, or strategy.

In this context, there are three considerations that frame commitment:

We do not make commitments – Commitment makes us.  What does this mean?  Each one of us is the embodiment of a commitment.  The fulfillment of this commitment comes by way of collaboration with the expression we are.  Checking in with ourSelf, we have to determine if we are ready and willing to inquire, give this idea consideration, and discover the hidden commitment that has a hand in making us who and what we are. 

We do not have commitments – Commitment has us.  Is this saying that we should simply eliminate those goals and promises we have to ourselves and others?  Not necessarily, but this context does give us something to think about.  It offers an inside out way of viewing commitment and seeing what really has us and what we are being called to explore.

We do not fulfill commitments – Commitment is the fulfillment of us.  Yet again, the concept sounds a little backward.  It holds commitment as a force that gives us power rather than our power being held as a force used to achieve commitment.

With an inherent focus, action, experience and offering unique to each individual, commitment demands collaboration.  It is a process.  It is not a direct path to a defined result.  This version of commitment is a life-long winding journey to fulfillment.  We can define this commitment.  Its foundation is there in our memory, sparked when we are asked questions that initiate recall.  It is alive in what we most want for ourSelf and in innocent childhood experience that first broke an innate promise recorded in our being.  We may not have been aware of the promise at the instant it was broken.  That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there embedded in the design of each one of us.  In the Blueprint that is quintessential you and quintessential me, it maintains its place and its relevance to the life we are living today.  Once revealed, it simultaneously releases and gifts us.  As we integrate what had a hold on us, we turn it into something we are now holding.   Herein, ‘living committed’ to something transforms forever.  Working hard to produce a result melts into the discipline of witnessing and collaborating with each expression that comes our way along the path.  Pure desire takes precedent.  We exude willingness and fluidity.  We collaborate with Life.  We are a Commitment to Living.  Fulfillment is the promise.

Are you working hard at living committed or are you a commitment to living?  Do you recall an innocent childhood event that was the turning point in your belief that life is perfect?  Is that turning point still an influence today?