The Perversion of Commitment

I hate people who are committed.

My roommate and I are part of an eco-friendly group at our university. We do the usual routines. Get the word spread about being environmentally friendly. Hold parties for the “eco-friendliest” residence halls. Plant trees and place more recycle bins around school.

The problem is, we don’t actually do anything.

Last year, my roommate suggested a program where you send trash to a company, they recycle it, and they give you money for mailing them your trash. This year, I proposed making a blog about how people could reuse their trash. Neither of our ideas took off. Why?

Because the people in the clubs are too committed.

They’re too committed to their old ideas that they won’t try something new. They’re too committed to the map, that they don’t believe that uncharted territories will work. They’re too committed to the safe that they won’t risk anything for the triumph. They’re too committed to the method, and not committed enough to the cause.

Some people become so committed to methods that even when they see that it’s not working, they continue doing it anyway. They misinterpret stopping a method as quitting the cause, when in reality, if you stopped the method now, you might be doing something to save the cause in the long run.

Writers are too reluctant to delete their precious 5000 words that they worked on last night because in doing so, they’ve abandoned the method, when they should realize that the cause was never to have the most words, or to get something tangible to show for all your hard work. The cause was to connect a soul to another soul.

And why do people usually end up committed to the method? Because the method is cushy. Because the method gets you in a routine. Because once you’ve started, the criticisms don’t come in as quickly and furiously as they did before.

Test the methods. Find which ones work. Ditch the ones that don’t. Remember to be committed to the cause.