Commitment

To commit is to say that you'll do something in the future. To commit to marriage, for example, you are promising to love another person for the rest of your life. That's a big commitment, and probably the most significant conscious commitment anyone in our society is ever asked to make.

There is a correlation between commitment and character, though I am not entirely clear on how I would chart that.

I recognize that to have committed, and then to find yourself later regretting the decision, or maybe later finding that keeping the commitment is getting in the way of pursuing your dreams, can put you in a pretty significant bind. You can keep the commitment initially made, and perhaps make the most of the situation, at the risk of never doing more than maintaining the status quo. Or, you can break the commitment in quest of whatever it is you are looking for that can't be achieved as committed, but thereby risk that the consequences of breaking it will cost you too much in the future. That's no easy choice.

In all honesty, it would have been a better thing to have never committed at all. Then, you could still be a man of your word. This situation wouldn't make a liar out of you. But, when you do get to this point of having to choose whether to keep your word or pursue your dreams, assuming they end up mutually exclusive, then I just hope you make a choice you don't end up regretting.