Monday, June 12, 2006

Another Take on Commitment
By Don Iannone

If we're not careful,
we become nothing more than
what we commit ourselves to in life,
and our commitments,
in return,
become all we are.
We don't feel alive,
unless,
we have filled our lives to the brim
with commitments to do, think, know,
or otherwise be in certain committed ways.
We don't feel worthwhile or meaningful,
unless,
our daily calendars are overbooked,
and look like Grand Central Station on a Monday morning.
At times,
we believe we will only continue to exist,
if we commit ourselves to being and existing.
Hold up a mirror to your life.
What do you see?
Perhaps like me,
you see yourself looking at yourself.
That's you--the one looking,
and not all the commitments you cling to,
and hope will make you exist.
Look past your commitments,
and discover the one
to whom all the commitments belong.
Perhaps you, like me, will see
a need to commit to less,
and in so doing--be more.

8 comments:

Pat Paulk said...

Like this Don!!

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Thanks Pat.

CE said...

You are the eternal thing that comes and goes that appears - now as John Jones, now as Mary Smith, now as Betty Brown - and so it goes, forever and ever and ever.
--Alan Watts

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Imemine...indeed I am and so are you, and all the rest.

Jim said...

Never in my life was I free, until I realized that it was my 'word' that was imprisoning me. When I became more responsible and cautious about giving my 'word', I became a free man.

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

Wow, great point Jim. Word become commitments too...commitments to think and see in certain terms.

Linda Jones Malonson said...

"a need to commit to less,
and in so doing--be more."

YES!

Don Iannone, D.Div., Ph.D. said...

That's the idea, Amias. But you already knew that.

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