Every time we commit to something, I think we ought to celebrate it. Especially for the most skeptical among us, commitment is not an easy matter - whether that’s commiting to an idea, a new career, a set of beliefs, a community, a partner - it takes a lot of time and effort to arrive at commitment! Sometimes, if not most of the time, it takes years of trial and error, of heartbreaks and failures, before commitment happens.
Before commitment, clarity first occurs in the form of an insight or a gut-feel, which sort of reorganizes our entire inner universe. This insight or gut-feel creates a “Hell, yeah!” moment where one becomes so sure of one’s decision. Sometimes, we respond to this moment once it occurs. Often, we need to repeatedly feel it to really align with it.
A sad but true tangent in all of these is that some clarity arrives only through loss. I was dipping my toes sort of into poetry these past few years, but never really felt committed to it. Only after my friend and poetry mentor died this year did it became clear to me that poetry will be part and parcel of the life I will be building forward.
Sad how I arrived into this insight, but it is something I feel compelled to celebrate still.