Personalize your Commitment

 

I found this picture as part of #standwithfarmerschallenge. This child has the most innocent and pure smile. What is a commitment for this child? She doesn’t know big words like vision or purpose or rights and maybe fails to even understand the gravity of the situation. However, what is clear is the understanding that she sees her community needed her to step up. She sees her role and she enjoys the responsibility. Most importantly, she feels safe. Everything is reflected in her innocent demeanour.

I was listening to Simon Sinek today, one of my guiding lights. He mentioned that everyone cannot be a visionary, and that is okay. Just like everyone cannot be good at math (his words exactly) it is not necessary for all people to visualize. So what happens then? What do we commit ourselves too? Simon says that one can find someone else's vision which they closely relate to and make their own. It may take a couple of tries to make it stick, but sounds like a plan to start with

Going back to our little angel, what do you think she is committing herself to? The cause? I am not so sure, she is committing herself to her family, her community. Her vision will be to see her community happy. She is committing herself without an active realization of doing so and yet her vision is working for her.

Commitment is an act of choice but what if a commitment is not a choice? What if, it is an involuntary commitment? However before I use the term loosely, there is a medical and legal definition of it. It is essentially a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent to have symptoms of severe mental disorder is detained in a psychiatric hospital where they can be treated involuntarily. (Reference Wikipedia)

Keeping this extreme at one end, if we are to simply refer to an act of commitment without consent or unwillingly commit, how far do you think that would take the person? An act of commitment is an act of conviction. The conviction which comes about as part of understanding oneself, learning and experience and the knowledge that this is a choice that they are making for themselves.

The prerequisite to commitment is what lay in the smile of the little angel-

1. -         The knowledge that whatever she is doing is bigger than her (purpose)
2. -         Faith that it is for good. (belief)
3. -         Security that even in this struggle she will be protected. (Support System), and
4. -         Spark in eyes from the happiness of feeding others (Content) 

Personalize your commitment irrespective of situation.