[10] WTF is Commitment

Dear Readers,

Hope you had a great weekend! It’s already the end of Q1, time flies.

In our writer’s meeting last week, we talked about commitment and how we are committing to publishing something every week at Life in Color.

Commitment is a BIG word these days. It’s not easy to truly commit to something. So we’re going to unpack “commitment” in today’s essay.

Check out: Life in Color Twitter for summary threads of our our pieces there. 🧵🪡

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The BIG C word 🙄

Imagine you’re a twenty-something gal living in Manhattan. The way you navigate the world of dating is just like everyone around you: through a dating app. 

You meet someone interesting and invest months (or worse, years) of your time into an exclusive “situationship” with this person. 

Everything seems like it’s getting serious (meet the family, travel together, spend all your time together). 

Everything says this relationship = Serious! 

Until the unspoken BIG C word is said … “Commitment”...

The whole situation takes a 180 degree turn … and you are back to Square 1. 

You can replace this story with any other potential rug-pull situation, such as:

• Being a Founder and starting a Company

• Quitting your job to pursue something new

• Going back to grad school

The same questions still arise in these situations: WTF is commitment? 

And why is commitment scary?

Defining Commitment 🐱‍🏍

Commitment in any form comes down to one word: investment. 

Investing time to watch every episode of your favorite show.

Investing emotion into the wins and losses of your favorite sports team all season.

Investing energy into learning how to play an instrument. 

(Literally) Investing in any opportunity.

This sounds simple enough and are activities we do all the time without a second thought (maybe except actual investing).

But because there are only 24 hours in a day … and time is finite, choosing to do something means choosing NOT to do a bunch of other things. 

For every minute you’re spending in front of the TV, you’re sacrificing a minute doing something else. 

Sure you can multitask, but your focus on the TV show’s shocking finale … the big game’s stunning conclusion … suffers.

Because when you multitask, something ends up being half-baked. 

Imagine ½ baked of 🍪 🍰 🍞

🥴 🤢 🤮

So when you are truly committed to some-“thing”, you have to dedicate yourself to it. And the pursuit of that “thing” has to be the most important way you could be spending your time at that moment. 

And to pursue it “all in”, you need conviction that the “thing” you are pursuing is the “right thing”.

Decisions, decisions 🤷‍♀️

So since we have many choices regarding how we spend our time, how do we choose?

When I have a lazy Sunday afternoon, do I think through ALL the options I have and rank them in importance?

No. 

I don’t think most of us approach life in this way: being conscious of the fact that there’s opportunity costs associated with every single decision we make. 

How exhausting would it be if we lived with this level of consciousness and deliberation on everything? 

It’s just not feasible.

Instead, most of us operate by doing things that are priorities first (whatever those are to you) in the relative order they rank to us, then leave time for “fun” things that feel right, or relevant, in a particular moment: the TV show, the game, music. 

In my free time, I’m not really conscious of ALL the other ways I could be spending my time; I just picked one that felt right at that moment.

But if I apply this logic to the lens of anything that requires commitment, it breaks down. 

It’s still true that for every minute you dedicate in the pursuit of that one “thing”, you’re losing opportunities to do the many other things that could be your “thing.” 

But suddenly, we become very conscious of that fact. 

Opportunity costs didn’t really matter before, when I was choosing between the game or piano. 

I wasn’t thinking through ALL the other ways I could be spending my time. 

But suddenly, with so much optionality for every part of our life (such as dating apps), we are hyper-aware of our other “options.” (And yes, I cringe sometimes when we refer to human beings as options…).

The Commitment Paradox 🟨 🟡

Maybe there are two kinds of commitment: 

One is “commitment lite” … defined by different pursuits you can juggle at once. 

You don’t need much conviction that your choice is the “right one”, you might even be able to juggle several at a time (working from home while having the TV on). 

Then there is “full commitment”, defined by things we have in life whereby choosing one, we have to close the door on the “others” (such as choice of co-founder, career path, life partner).

So at some point, the choice we are making is choosing what NOT to be involved with. 

But because life has no counterfactuals (we don’t know where the alternate choice would have led us) ... there are endless things that we choose NOT to be involved in. 

And the greater the stakes at getting that choice wrong, the higher our fear of “missing out” on getting it right. 

You might have FOMO staying in on a Saturday night, but making the wrong choice on your co-founder is one you could end up regretting for years.

Here is the Paradox: You want to increase your optionality … but without commitment, none of the options will come to fruition.

You can explore an endless number of options all you want, but without commitment, you aren’t choosing anything. You can spend time debating all you want between items on the dinner menu and which movie to watch at the theater, but invariably you have to pick one — or the restaurant closes and the movies end.

Many important decisions in life require us to commit to a choice. A real choice. Otherwise you are just passing the time.

Choosing not to choose is a Choice

I think fear of Commitment goes back to having options – maybe even too many of them – and how aware you are of them. 

And when it comes to people (partner, choice of co-founder and so forth), we are hyper aware. 

These choices are high stakes … I get it.

The more pressure there is to get it right … “Commitment” enters scary territory. 

And that’s when weighing every single option comes into play. 

But in choosing to not choose you might end up empty-handed.

So … what should our hypothetical New York gal do?

The choice is hers.

🎤💧