To commit to something To take responsibility. To take it as yours. To generate a bond of honor there.
Wanting to go through with those things we pledge our word to. This is the idea of commitment or compromise. New Acropolis Presents What is Commitment?
Lúcia Helena Galvão | 2020 This is the idea of commitment or compromise. We live in a time where this is very stigmatized, seen as something that generates a loss of freedom. Let's think a little bit about this concept?
Let's see if we come to any conclusions. that can enlighten us, what is actually commitment. Because compromise was considered in times past as one of the most precious virtues of a human being.
to the point that it was necessary for a human being to be committed, was a responsible person, a word person, for someone to admit him, for example, as a friend, or as a worker in your, in your enterprise. This has already been considered in such a way, as vital, which was almost a badge of honor. And today it is often seen even with bad eyes.
We are not going to discuss much, what caused these values to be so empty, But we'll leave it to you to do your own thinking. Well, in philosophy we usually examine the origin of the words. I explain why!
The words when they were born, They were born to respond to a need. And sometimes they are emptied over generations, centuries, in such a way that we no longer know what it means. So we are left with empty words.
We talk about things we don't quite understand. The etymology goes back and takes us back to the moment when the word was born, and tells us, to cover what kind of reality this word was born. And it gives us a much deeper possibility of understanding, what is the use of this concept.
So commitment, or commitment has the Latin root commitments of the past participle compromitere, which means to make a mutual promise. ie with more promiteri, promise together! In other words, a promise a mutual expectation.
And as I said to you, it was, in times past, an indication for you to have a friend. It means you could count there, to give your best, and to receive the best from others. Tell that what you dedicated to that person was matched accordingly.
That is, there were no breaches of trust, liability breaches. So it's an interesting factor that we see in this etymology. The mutual promise.
The confidence. Then you realize that these things, honor, trust, dignity, establishing bonds between men, was strongly associated with the idea of commitment. And today we don't have that connection much anymore.
What are friendships today? We would have to do a lecture just to talk about this concept. But we see that sometimes they are more of a collegiality, transitory, passing, than a very deep bond, where one is a sum factor in the life of the other.
That idea of compromise is missing a lot. It's interesting, I haven't talked to a friend yet, and she said to me: -When we invent a word, it takes power within our life. And in a little while you see.
. . I don't know.
Sometimes it is very fashionable to invent a new disease. And when we invent a name for her, soon it will be full of contaminated. Have you noticed what a curious thing this is?
Things that 20 years ago, those of my generation didn't even know about. Never, ever in your life. Today it's everywhere.
It seems that inventing a new disease every season It's very fashionable. . .
Current in our days. So when you have a word that has its meaning, it becomes much easier to live it. When words run out, as Plato said, empties the most sacred of arts, which is the transmission of knowledge, And it also makes this value, which this word wears become increasingly rare.
And today this is a word that has become increasingly rare in value, which it corresponds. And many times this value is reversed, and is seen as a person who is a slave to something. A committed man, he is a man who is a slave to something.
He is not free. Is it like that? Is it the commitment that enslaves?
Let's think about this a little bit. Good. Promise then, the mutual promise, the first thing we would have to think about is: To whom do we make our first mutual promise?
That is, what is our first commitment? No doubt. It's with us.
Our first commitment is to honor our human condition. This human essence that exists within us, it has to be visible, it has to leave footprints in the world. We came into the world to fulfill our human condition.
And through our example, help others to be able to follow this path too. That is, we came to be a sum factor, for ourselves and for the world. first appointment, it is of our essence, with our appearance.
Or of being with existing, as you prefer. We are committed to serving what more intimately we are. We are human beings.
In other words, humanism, it is an essential value for us. Because a man who does not practice, does not live humanism, it's like a plant that refuses to photosynthesize. Or an animal that refuses to exercise its instincts.
He's not really a man, he's a half man. What nature expects from him is exactly what he doesn't do. So the first appointment we have.
With us. Commitment to knowing and honoring our human identity When we miss an appointment. Sometimes people think, I let so-and-so down.
I caused him harm. He won't forgive me. Okay, that probably happened.
But, who suffers most from our lack of commitment, without a doubt, we are ourselves. Have you stopped to assess this situation? So-and-so was waiting for you to do some work.
You did not go. Look between us, he's going to get bored one day, but no one is irreplaceable. Tomorrow you will find another professional.
Maybe better than you. Tomorrow you'll find someone else to help you with that. I do not know.
Whatever appointment you had. But he will likely have a replacement at very short notice. Now who can never be replaced.
It's you, for yourself. He can count on other people. You can't help but rely on yourself.
You cannot give up on yourself. So you are the biggest loser. Because of missing your appointments so much.
From so much betraying your commitment, do you know what will happen? You lose complete confidence in yourself. And trust is the foundation from which we leverage into the future.
Pay attention to this. Because losing confidence in yourself is a very difficult thing to do. to return, to correct, to reconquer!
When you say something that seems trite, like for example I'm going to start a regimen on Monday. Look, don't talk if you don't want to get serious. Because if you always commit, with yourself, with things that do not fulfill, the next time you want to make a commitment, important, vital for your growth, your own conscience will say: - There you go with that!
You keep saying things and do nothing. Do you think I'm going to get on this one? I know that tomorrow you forgot about it.
It won't do anything. Do you realize that you are left without a base of support to leverage in the future? You are left without credibility in the face of your own potential.
Before your own conscience. And it will probably have a lot of trouble growing up. You're going to have to fight a lot to get that back.
So the biggest loser, when we miss our appointments, we are ourselves. Others can replace us. We, we cannot replace ourselves, in our lives.
This is impossible. Therefore, to make our word worthy and trustworthy, It's a matter of survival. Of life as human beings.
Because otherwise we are condemned, to be confined in that state, moral, mental and psychological, that we are in that moment. There is no possibility of growth, when you lose the ground, the base, where do you lean to leverage for the future Well, what about the loss of freedom? How does this work?
A committed person, did she really lose her freedom? Imagine you, what, I had a very simple equation, a line, and along these lines I would represent the human trajectory for you. I think I'll say something, that few disagreed with me, because it is obvious, it is a truism, as they say in philosophy.
That every human being came into the world to come out of ignorance and reach wisdom. A wisdom that allows you to respond better to life. Respond like a human being.
Meet your needs, and the needs of the world as a human being. So, we reached a certain level of ignorance and we can reach a certain level of wisdom. This is the human trajectory.
If you have that in mind, you will realize that every time you work, for your improvement as a human being, and consequently contributes to the improvement of the people around you, you are making sense. You are contributing to what you, was called by nature. You are contributing to your human nature.
If you are loose,. Serving anything, or nothing, you end up being a slave circumstances that were not appropriate, for your moment. It's as if.
. . Imagine you, to make this idea clearer.
A leaf, catch a branch. She has a commitment to that plant. It is through this leaf, you must know, it is like a solar ray receiving cell.
It is from this reception that the sheet makes, which photosynthesis takes place in the plant. And it is also through the enlargement of the pores of this leaf, which is also received, carbon dioxide, and gas exchange with the environment takes place. So this leaf has a vital job in the life of the plant.
If that leaf comes loose from there and begins to be a toy in the hand of the wind. Is she more free? What is the freest sheet?
The one that serves the body to which it belongs? Or the leaf that is a slave to the wind and goes where the wind throws it? A being without identity, a being that does not fulfill what the body in which he is inserted needs, it is a plaything in the hand of circumstances.
Imagine you, that in our human body we can perceive this very clearly. A cell that serves the whole is a healthy cell. A cell that enters the alternate schema, and think only of yourself, that's a cancer cell.
We know the danger this is, for yourself, and for the whole. So we have to understand, that the leaf attached to the tree, that is your commitment. That's why she came into the world.
That's what it exists for. She fastened to the tree, fulfilling what corresponds to her, she is much freer, than a leaf that becomes a toy in the hand of the wind. Go where the wind blows.
And so it is with all beings. The greatest freedom we can have, it is precisely this freedom to realize ourselves, in what we are. Each being, is realized and is happy, in what it is.
Plants being plants, animals being animals, and human beings, being human. That is, realizing human values. In the same way that the plant realizes its plant values.
Do what corresponds to you. And one of the core values it is precisely the ability to compromise. Effort, responsibility for something.
Even starting from yourself. Take responsibility for leaving here a little bigger than you entered. In making your life have a plus.
Make a difference. Be a sum factor. So this is important for us to understand.
He who complies with his nature, is much freer than the one who becomes alienated and being dragged along, he doesn't even know why kind of nature. Or where. There is an example that I usually give, which I find interesting.
Imagine that life is like a journey, it's kind of commonplace, but we can put it like this. And you are driving an automobile. What is this body of yours here.
You can have two possibilities to make this move. An. On the steering wheel.
Lucid, with open eyes, choosing where you want to go. Or in the back seat, blindfolded, being driven by someone, that you don't know who you are or where you're going. The man who does not take the reins of his vehicle, and does not have a clear direction reference.
He is a slave, of things he doesn't even know what they are, and who they serve. Because nobody is stopped. If you don't take control of your life, and the tree that corresponds to you is not attached, that is, do not commit yourself to what you believe, will be unconsciously committing to goals, that maybe you wouldn't want to know what they are.
Stopped, we are not. Life does not admit complete paralysis. We are always on the move.
You choose, take the reins, or hand the reins over to someone else. So life hinges around compromise. With a deep commitment, with its laws.
Which our physical body strictly follows. The heart does not take breaks. The peristaltic rhythms, bowel, the rhythm of breathing.
All this knows, that there has to be rhythm. There has to be permanent functioning. There are no breaks.
There are no counter-rhythms. There are no intervals. Because life does not sustain itself.
And it is a rhythm on the metaphysical level as well. Of construction, of knowledge and possession, of those values that characterize us as human beings. Knowledge, possession and practice.
And that makes us compromise, with human nature. While our body is committed only to survival, we consciously commit ourselves to true life. As human beings.
For those who have watched that beautiful movie, called Braveheart. The protagonist said a very interesting sentence: -All men die. But not all men live.
Some just survive. And this is the man who is not able to commit himself to human values, and grow with them. a very interesting thing for us to think, which is also one more argument, to this issue of freedom.
Imagine a company, You have the president of the company on one side, which is the largest shareholder. That he is a citizen who all his life is engaged in that undertaking. That thing over there, he goes along.
Your whole life goes into a loop if that venture fails. Therefore, his commitment to the enterprise is total. As he has a total commitment, there is nothing in this company that is off limits to him.
He can know all the documents. He can know the entire operation of each of the sectors. It has wide access to all sectors of that enterprise.
In other words, he is freer, because it is more committed. Now imagine you are an employee who has just joined. Or an intern.
Who has that job over there, but is already thinking about the next one. It's just passing through, just to gain an experience. He doesn't even understand what the company really works for.
It plays a very limited role. It does not understand, nor is it interested in understanding. It is evident that his commitment is minimal.
If that person, if that company goes bankrupt, he will quickly get another job. It doesn't make a big difference in your life. That is, as the commitment is very small, freedom is very small.
An intern, a very new employee, he may not want to read company documents, nor penetrate all sectors, and know how it all works. There is a limit to the information he has access to. Very restricted by the way.
Because little commitment, little freedom. It's so full of obvious things around us people, who sometimes admires me, how can we believe certain things, that are placed as dogmas, as cultural products, that are thrown at us. How can we swallow this passively?
When a minute's observation, on the laws of nature, we realize that's not how it works. With many, many cases. Where we go blind, and believe in absurdities.
When we stop for a while, and trust ourselves. And look at the nature around us. Nature in general, and human nature, we realize that this is not the case.
It is not how it works. In other words, it is the price of convenience. At its worst, which is mental self-indulgence.
That doesn't let us grow. Plato, in a dialogue called The Republic. He said something very interesting, within the Myth of the Cave.
Small detail of the myth of the cave. He said that the wise was the one who, on leaving the cave, I saw things illuminated by sunlight. Well, what does it mean to see things illuminated by sunlight?
It's a symbol! What does he explain there? Sunlight is the idea of good.
One who sees things illuminated for the idea of good, sees the fullness of things, and therefore he is a sage. What can we understand from this people? Imagine that I look at things illuminated by a low-power flashlight.
I will only see a fragment of things, I won't see them all. This fragment is what interests me about things. When I light, when I commit myself to the idea of good.
That is, human kindness. Being a sum factor. When I commit to this idea.
I look at things, and I see them all. Do you know why ? Because I don't want to manipulate them, I don't want to use them.
I want to know how I can act, in such a way that I benefit this thing. I have no other intention than to benefit you. Imagine you have one, need to vent to a friend.
You will not look for a self-interested person who can manipulate what you are going to say to their advantage. You will look for someone who likes you so much, be so committed to your good, that you know you can talk about, and it won't be misused. Is not it?
you just open up for the one who doesn't want anything but your good. Do we think it's nature that doesn't know that? That nature is devoid of intelligence.
Only the one who approaches her wanting to be a sum factor for its growth, That is, he who is committed to good, Only before that, she opens up and shows her heart. And this man sees the heart of all things, and thus becomes a sage. Why?
Because his disposition was to add not to subtract. To help all things find their own good And not to take from them everything that might interest you. Things become an end in themselves, and not merely means, for my personal whims.
Why then, according to Plato, does a man become wise? Because he is committed to an idea. which is the idea of good.
That is, it is the commitment, that will leverage us from ignorance to wisdom. Notice how classic this is! It's a passage that I really like from Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology.
He did a series of researches with the unconscious with the subconscious. He says that on one occasion, in one of your dips to understand the human unconscious a little better. He realized that the only thing that brought him back, that didn't let him get lost there and go crazy, it was the compromise.
The commitment he had with your family, with your patients. With the people he intended to help in the future. In other words, commitment rescued him from madness.
If he didn't commit to anything, he didn't have a rope, in which he could cling, and get out of there, and return to lucidity. There are so many cases of this type, within disciplines, several of them, which give us many examples. Commitment has always been a form of rescue, from chaos, of manipulation.
It has always been a way for man to ensure that he advances, that their actions add up, in a single direction. The loss of freedom, sometimes it is, characterized by a phrase, that we hear a lot of people say. I'm free!
I don't commit to anything. The person who says to me: - I don't commit to anything. I already think, this is the worst of slaves.
Is committed to alienation, and alienation is a demanding Master. Don't let that build anything. Don't let it disappear in the same direction three days in a row.
It does not allow anything solid and vertical to be lifted. who thinks who will be able to live a life without committing to anything, abandoned as we say before, the chance to consciously commit, with what he believes. He remains committed to a thousand other things, that he doesn't even know what they are.
Don't compromise with anything. A circumstance, if you have died. If you're alive, you're committed to something.
Consciously or Unconsciously. Continuing. .
. Another example that is also very interesting and this one I use a lot in the classroom, and I hope that makes it clearer for you. Which is the example of the shipwrecked man.
Imagine that a person is adrift, in the middle of the tide, in the middle of the ocean. There is an island in the distance. But he tries to swim there, and it does not succeed because it is thrown by the tide in all directions.
Now imagine that on this island, someone, tie a rope very tightly, and this rope is floating in the ocean, with the tip close to that castaway. In such a way that he can take this end of this rope. And go pulling slowly, the measure of your breath and possibilities, until you reach solid ground.
He is no longer a plaything in the hand of the tides. He now has direction, he has a path. Let's try to imagine this symbolically as if this island and the mainland was wisdom.
The man who is loose, tossed to and fro by the tides it is ignorance. Our ignorance that makes us a plaything in the hands of circumstances, from malicious people, of life's pressures to alienate us. Pressures in life so that we fall into complacency, and even for our inner desires self-indulgence, alienation, comfort, the law of least effort.
All this tries to throw us from side to side. But you have a rope, that hangs right next to you. That rope is not ignorance, nor is it wisdom, but it is a path.
That if you commit to her, never lets go, and pulls on, without haste and without pause, one day she will lead you to wisdom. that this rope, which we are wont to call philosophy, which is the love of wisdom, She can only do something for you if you commit to her. any height, if you let go of that rope, you become a toy again, in the hand of circumstances.
So you have wisdom there, ignorance here, and that string of commitment. That if you never let go, she can rescue you from where you are. No compromise, no compromise, we are a leaf in the wind.
We are shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean. and a toy of the tides of the winds, whatever it may be. These factors, both external and internal, that we are left with no strength to fight them.
No identity! Which is another important thing, for you to understand. The construction of age, identity forgiveness, it is in itself a commitment.
And this identity, it is constructed by two factors. Which is where I want to go. Your island.
And where am I now. So we don't fall into what Jung called ego inflation. I'm a kilometer away from the Island, but I think I'm a hundred meters away.
Knowing where I am now, and where I want to go, it is the equation for building your identity. In other words, having an ideal, to which you commit. If you say for example I want to be more human.
Fairer. More fraternal. Commit to it.
Realize how far you are from it, but assumes a commitment to this idea you pull this rope, and one day it will get there. And don't think I'm rambling, because we are dealing more with commitment regarding work. Do not.
Commitment to work. The commitment to the family. Commitment to friendships.
All of them are derivatives, commitment to our own conscience and with our life as a whole. Don't imagine that a person who does not compromise with his conscience. It has no clear meaning of life.
Has no love for the human condition, It has no identity, will commit in the specific context. She doesn't commit. She acts as long as she thinks it is, compensating somehow for some personal interest.
That idea we used to have at least I had it in my grandparents' generation. To pluck a mustache. I give my word here.
My word is greater than any guarantee, worth more than any promissory note. Do you realize that this person who gave his mustache thread as collateral, he believed that everything that was part of him, part of his body, it was a guarantee. by word, of compromise, Of responsability.
And this is a profound dignity! This concept of dignity, who would also give another talk. He is the result of the commitment you have to yourself.
If you are committed to your life as a human being everything else will be given in addition, as the biblical text says. This human being will be committed to work, family, under any circumstances. But the first thing!
Commit to your human nature. Commit to the values that characterize you as a human being. Commit to dignity.
Well some related virtues to the commitment. Respect. To yourself and others.
I find it very difficult for you to get respect yourself, if you don't see it yourself, a worthy human being. If you don't see yourself as a human being who deserves respect, that deserves trust. You don't respect yourself.
He becomes a person who has a very diminished sense of himself. Very cloudy. And this lack of confidence in yourself, it also makes him not trust others.
If you lack self-love, makes him not capable either, to love anyone deeply. Because nature has a parallel relationship. Who is deep, is deep in everything he expresses.
Those who are shallow are shallow in everything they express. So the first thing, Respect. Manuel Kant talks about respect in its foundation of the metaphysics of morals.
It returns etymology "respectare". Look once more. That is, look deeper, for the other, for yourself.
Seek the essence of things. Respect is given to those who look deeply into themselves, and like what you see. Enjoy your intimate nature.
He has a certain pride in himself. One is pride. To be a worthy human being.
To be at peace with your conscience. To leave a human trace around the world. This is a foundation, of human self-esteem.
A foundation of identity. And the commitment, the right commitment, it is one of the sources that generate that self-respect. Therefore, commitment and respect are closely linked.
A person who does not compromise, who is not responsible, technically we could call him an irresponsible. And it's very difficult to respect an irresponsible one. Realize that irresponsible and uncommitted are synonyms.
But one we take as negative, and another is sometimes taken as positive. he is a free, uncommitted man. Perhaps no man is, no human being.
Because it does not compromise with the human condition, nor the status of a human being could have. Legitimately not. Self control.
That is, we will notice that we have a series of calls in all directions. At this moment who is listening to me there must be a thousand thoughts competing with what I'm saying. We are always receiving offers, of things to think, things to feel, things to do.
If you have deep commitment, with your identity, your ideal of life. You are able to make a correct choice amidst all these offers. give you an example pretty silly, pretty simple, but that makes it easier to understand.
I promise, to be a person, fairer and more upright. Every time someone offers me something, I already have a direction reference to measure. If this is good or bad.
What you are offering me as an activity, with thought, as feeling, makes me take a step towards my human ideal? Do not. Do not do.
It takes me out of my ideal, or even pulls me back. So that's bad. That you are trying to contaminate me with that thought, with that feeling, makes me walk in the direction of this human ideal?
Do not. So that to me is not appropriate. When a person knows where he wants to go, she can even sense when she is out of her mind.
What is it like to be out of your mind? When the extension of your action takes you in a direction that is not your identity. So it's hard to manipulate a person like that.
Anything they offer you you have, a benchmark to measure. You are able to discern. You are able to develop intelligence.
Again going to etymology, Intelligence comes from intellectere, choose from. Choose the good grain. Choose from all the offers that make your life, in thought, in feelings.
Thoughts running through your head right now. Feelings. Choose the most suitable one to make you grow.
And do you know which is the greatest intelligence? Choose among the things the world proposes you to be, who you really are. The greatest Intelligence is identity.
So this fixing of a compromise, will make us have a much greater possibility of self-control. To respond to these pressures from the environment. Of being able to choose things with a degree of awareness and responsibility.
Lucidity and attention. This is also a very related virtue. We are tremendously scattered, and our decisions are being practically pushed by the circumstances.
A committed person, she has to choose the proper things, for your commitment to be carried out successfully. So she is lucid, and she is aware of life's opportunities. We live in the times, of history without a doubt, with the highest degree of dispersion.
People live in disarray. They always live with fantasies about things, that if perhaps they were real, she would hate them. They live running away from life itself.
One of the great dramas of this quarantine that we are living, it's the people inside the house, afraid of finding themselves. Because they make their life an escape from themselves. So all this scattering, all this running away, all this distraction so that we don't look at our life, lest we look at ourselves, it's terrible, from the point of view of honoring a commitment.
That's why dispersed people don't like to compromise. Therefore lucidity and attention, they are also virtues, which go hand in hand with commitment. We need to be more lucid.
We need to be more attentive. The multiple opportunities and lessons, that life gives us every day. Commitment also helps us with this.
And if we are landing in life, surely our fantasies are not better than life. Give life a chance to show you what it has in store for you. Commitment is a powerful ally in this.
Dignity, will, grit. They are also elements obviously linked to commitment. Where there is a will, there is a way.
In other words, once you commit you will find the means to get there. There's no way! You will develop your creativity and your imagination and it will find a way to get there, that is will channeling.
By the way, if we stop to think about the three great human virtues. . .
Which according to the Platonic tradition from them all the others unfolded. They are will, love and intelligence. At three, go hand in hand with commitment.
Once I'm committed to something, I channel will. Once I'm committed to something I have true love. Even with a person, I can go up to them and say: -Whatever happens, as long as I'm alive, count on me.
What does that mean? I committed to someone. This is the foundation of true love.
Otherwise it's a passing passion. That when circumstances change that person is no longer more so important and goes to the periphery of our life. Intelligence, as we have already said, is fundamental!
That I have a reference for the choice. That I can discern, and that is the basis of intelligence. And this reference is given by my commitment.
So all the fundamental attributes of the human being, are linked to him having this rope, which relates him to his ideal. Which relates it to solid ground. So dignity, will and claw is that.
It's an interesting thing, by the way. if we are going to take the etymology of the word courage. It is said that it comes from the "core" heart.
Imagine that there is a child of yours out there who needs you. And there are a lot of obstacles along the way. There's no way you can't go.
Your heart is already gone, it's already there with your child. And now the body will overcome all obstacles. Because you have a deep commitment to that being.
This will give you all the willpower you need to cross all obstacles. Plato, in one of his dialogues, Cratylus, he said even heroism also came from there. It came from Eros, love.
I overcome obstacles, in order to save what I am committed to. That is, Love, Will and Intelligence. would all be related to the idea of commitment.
the commitment then don't take away our freedom, quite the contrary, it frees us from mediocrity. He pulls us above mere survival. Kant used to say that man, or he opens himself to the appeals of mere survival, and is completely closed to human values, or he does the opposite, he opens himself to human values.
And down here it closes, becomes much less manipulable by the medium. Own yourself. Able to write your own story.
Because where is he getting it from your identity, is not of the circumstances. It's from this set of this toolbox that we've been given. What are human values?
That characterize us as human beings. Commit to it, rescues us from being, a pawn in the hand of the circumstances of the world. One of the things I found curious about this quarantine.
When talking to people build a new routine inside your home. They get lost, they don't know how to build a routine. Because they never built their routine.
The routine was built by needs and pressures. And they were being played, like a billiard ball pushed by the cue. They don't know how to build a routine for their own life.
They were used to being a passive pole, of circumstances that were pushing. Commitment to the human condition protects you from that kind of thing. It guarantees you to go above the circumstances.
It guarantees you loyalty to yourself. Well there is a phrase by Carlos Drmmond de Andrade which is very interesting, although I will interpret it the other way around than is normally done. But I found it very suitable for Let's close this discussion.
Go to the theater it's like going to life without committing ourselves. Interesting isn't it? He says the theater is like a life, in which you are not committed.
You suffer nothing, you have nothing. Stand there watching. People seem to take this seriously.
Because they behave in relation to their own life, like a spectator at the theater. Always a spectator! Never protagonist.
They're never on stage, they're always in the arena. Seeing what circumstances require. Without any role.
Without taking the reins of your life at any time. It's okay to take a break from life every now and then, go to the theater, and see life on stage, and stay you, in the public, in the audience. But spending your whole life in the audience of your own life is a little too much.
Those who don't commit don't step on stage. Don't star in your life. And at the end of his life, he will tell a story of what was done to him.
And not what he himself did. Have you ever heard people like that? I remember once I was in a queue at a bank, and there were two persons conversing in these terms.
Oh I wanted so much in my youth, have made such a trip. But then it didn't, because my father wanted me to study. Then I really wanted to take such a course, but it didn't work, because I got a job, that I needed such a thing.
Then within this job I really wanted to have, developed in that area, but it didn't work because my boss didn't want to. Then my wife didn't want it, then my children didn't want it. That is the story of that person it was the story of what they had done to her throughout her life.
No moment of protagonism. No moment she on stage. She is always in the audience.
And this is curious. It is curious that we consider this as good and desirable. A lifetime being lived, not living.
Surviving and not living. And finally. .
. An interesting sentence that I would like to leave for you, as a closing sentence, which is as follows: Commitment is like dropping an anchor in the future that we aim and pull without haste and without pause. Drp an anchor in the future you aim for, and go pulling that rope.
With rhythm, without rush and without pause. Rhythm is the secret of life. In other words, committing yourself is building yourself as a human being.
And if you are a builder of yourself, will be a consultant in all the things you participate. There is also a philosophical maxim that he finds very interesting which says: There have always been pyramid builders in history and destroyers of pyramids. Choose which group you want to belong to.
There are a lot of people to demolish. It is important that we are builders. And the idea of building, a real human being and build something positive in all the people who participate in our lives.
It is a great and very worthy commitment. I hope you can reflect on all this and understand, the human value of commitment. Your life as a whole.
And for all particular cases. Employment, family, social relations, intellectual life. Everything you dedicate yourself to.
Without commitment, you get nowhere. You don't step in real time, as the Greeks say. Real time is measured by displacements towards the human ideal.
Without commitment we do not enter real time. We live in clock time, where only biology fulfills its role. We grow old.
But the psychological, moral and spiritual part of man, it freezes at the same point. In other words, this is not life. This is what I would like to convey, and I hope it yields a good reflection for you.
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