Why Commitment Makes Life Easier
By Mayama Ishaya
Commitment is powerful. If you want to go somewhere, it makes it easier to get to where you want to go. Commitment starts with a crystal clear picture of what you want, and a decision to do what it takes to reach it.
Half-hearted decisions will require willpower because every day you will need to make the decision afresh. If you make a wholehearted decision, you never have to do it again. You no longer need to think about it. One choice made with commitment is easy compared to having to convince yourself to recommit every step of the way.
For example, if you say you will wake up tomorrow at 7:00 am, you put your alarm on the night before. When the alarm goes off, and if the decision was half-hearted, you have left yourself an opening to change your mind.
Cut Through The Confusion, Doubt And Uncertainty
The mind creates confusion and indecision by giving you the pros and cons of why you should or shouldn’t get up. You press the snooze button. If your decision had been wholehearted, you wouldn’t press the snooze button, you would be out of your bed.
Committing 100% is easy. You no longer need to think about it. It is done. Suppose your decision is anything less than 100%; you haven’t really made any choice. Your mind has the opportunity to think about it again and again. Your mind jumps from one thought to another and back again.
This is when it seems that great willpower is needed to continue with your decision. But you haven’t really made one yet. Perhaps we may assume that commitment is hard because we associate it with willpower and discipline.
Yet, a decision you commit to 100% requires little willpower. In fact, anything less than 100% isn’t really a commitment at all, it’s more of a wish.
More than half of my life was spent making half-hearted decisions. I did a little of this and a little of that. I was thirsty, yet I was digging shallow wells everywhere, searching for water. I didn’t stay with one thing long enough to quench my thirst.
Your Highest Desire Is Waiting For You To Commit To It
When I was finally asked by an Ishaya monk what I wanted more than anything else from life, my one strongest desire, well, I was stumped. I had never really thought about it. I knew there had to be more than this - this thought in my mind that said I didn’t want to live with myself anymore.
That day I answered that question and stepped on this path of discovery. I had faith that it would take me to my strongest desire (which was to experience everlasting joy). And it has. The well is deep, and my thirst was quenched.
It’s a beautiful thing when you commit to something. It gives life direction. It flows.
When you know where you’re going that’s everything. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing 100%.
There Are No Half Measures To A Full Experience Of Life
Halfway in doesn’t work. Put all of yourself into it. It makes for ease and grace and beauty. If you say that you have committed to a path or a life partner but yet keep your eyes searching in case something better comes along you are taking your eye off your chosen path or your chosen partner.
You are always comparing, judging and wondering. There is no peace in that. Making a choice makes you want it to work. You will keep going and going every day and not just the days that it feels good for you or convenient or not just when you are getting something out of it. That’s when the good stuff starts to show up and old habits that don’t serve you can disappear.
All the many beliefs, judgements and habits I accumulated in life covered up the joy I felt as a child. Commitment cut their roots.
I notice more joy and more ease continually flowing into my life since I’ve chosen to go for what I desired most. Now, I never need to press snooze. Heck, I don’t even need an alarm.
