When did you know you were committed?

The question was asked first on LinkedIn where other answers can be found. My answer was:

“When I was younger, I thought commitment was simply a matter of choice. But then I figured out that I could change my choices since they were really set up by someone else in the first place. If I chose door A, instead of B, or C, I could come back and choose B or C another time. It seemed everything was a matter of pleasure and pain until I realized that merry-go-round was on a horizontal plane. Dizziness didn't do well with me. In the end I felt like I was boxed in.

When a little older, I thought commitment was a matter of judgement. I went on a search for rules to apply to my live and to others'. As a lawyer, I ran all the traps, learned all the assumptions I could so I could argue with the best, not only in law, but ethics, morality, philosophy, religion, etc. But this only put me on the box, not out of the box as I had hoped. By changing evidence of facts or assumptions in the rasoning, I could arrive at a different result. It was especially troubling to discover the ultimately hypothetical nature of fact determination and reasoning. I found this disconcerting and not at all what I expected in commitment.

Then finally, thank God, I discovered how decision-making works. Only when we make a decision are we committed. Short of that we have not acheived what we desire.

An easy way to think of this is the story going around about the chicken and the pig. Both claim to have made a decision to work with you. But the chicken is only willing to provide an egg, while the pig commits his bacon. Please let me know if you want to know more about my thoughts on decision-making. There are many models, but one I've come upon is more satisfying than all the rest.”

What do you think?

Please include your comment here or contact me to discuss.

Thanks.

John Darrouzet