What is commitment?

Day 1

Hello Readers, I wanted to start a new blog and I was mentally searching and scanning to figure out what topic should I start writing the blog. Mentally I had a made a commitment to attempt to start writing this blog every day. The thought of commitment worries me about maintaining the promise to self. I am hoping there will not be breach of promise because of my daily life commitments. Commitment is the word I used and it occurred to me that there no better topic to start than the topic of commitment.

So what is commitment or committed?

To start the conversation on commitment I researched the local dictionaries to source the meaning of the word and according to the oxford dictionary commitment is defined as a dedication, rules of engagement with restrictive freedom or a promise (Oxford, 2012). The idea of a true promise should not really have a deadline, and a commitment should process in the same method.

But in reality has the idea of promise become a technical word today?

Today with social communication as an accepted form of networking we see status like being in a committed relationship, committed but complicated and couple weeks down the status changes from being committed to not being committed. Has commitment become a fashion statement or the latest status?

Does the concept of committed have a life span or is it an endless endurance? Let’s look at another scenario, when a child is born the new parents make a promise or commitment to protect the child. But as the child reaches adulthood what happens to the sense of commitment? Is it as strong as when the child was born or does it take a backseat?

Interestingly recently I had made a study on the four types of generations for a project namely: Veterans Generation (1922-1940), Baby Boomers (1940-1964), Generation X (1965-1980), and Y Generation (1980 – 2000). The research study observes different types and levels of commitment in each of the respective groups. For example, in a work culture, the veterans worked in one or two firms all there life, but Y Generations have 3 jobs in 3 years. Now does the concept of commitment create the sense of culture?

How about the idea of making a commitment or promise to self? There have been times we have made promises to ourselves and some of these promises may have lasted a lifetime but most of them have been shelved at some point in your life. So theoretically the idea of commitment should be permanent but practically the idea of commitment is life’s biased intervention.

So then if promise or commitment is not permanent (?) then what is the idea of permanency (?) or follow through (?)

~Lenji Jacob

Reference

Oxford Dictionaries Online (2012) Definition of commitment - characteristic, promise and responsibility Retrieved July 30, 2012, from http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/commitment?region=us&q=commitment