I wasn’t choosing anymore. I was maintaining.

Commitment, Reconsidered

There was a time when commitment meant deciding quickly

so the discomfort would stop.

I believed that if I chose fast enough, firmly enough,

the questions would quiet down.

That certainty itself was a kind of shelter.

I committed so I wouldn’t wobble.

I committed so I wouldn’t have to notice doubt forming.

I committed because leaving things open felt like danger.

Once I said yes, I felt I had to mean forever.

Otherwise the commitment didn’t count.

Otherwise it meant I was weak, evasive, unreliable.

So I locked things in.

Dates on calendars.

Tickets bought early.

Explanations prepared in advance, just in case.

That version of commitment needed witnesses.

It needed weight.

It needed proof that I wouldn’t change my mind.

And it worked—briefly.

It gave me something firm to stand on.

But it also cost me my breath.

Over time, I started to notice something unsettling:

the tighter I held commitment,

the less present I felt inside it.

I wasn’t choosing anymore.

I was maintaining.

I was staying not because something remained true,

but because I’d promised not to notice if it stopped being true.

That’s when the shape of commitment began to change.

This new kind doesn’t arrive with urgency.

It doesn’t announce itself.

It doesn’t ask for reassurance.

It doesn’t say, I will never change my mind.

It says, This is honest for me right now, and I trust myself to keep noticing.

It doesn’t slam doors behind me.

It doesn’t demand certainty from the future.

It doesn’t need to be defended.

It’s quieter than I expected.

Almost ordinary.

I commit now the way I set down a glass

when I’m finished drinking.

Not to prove anything.

Not to calm myself.

Just because something is complete.

This commitment doesn’t promise endurance.

It promises alignment.

I can stay because I want to.

I can leave because I notice.

Neither one threatens who I am.

The old commitment asked,

Will this hold me together?

The new one asks nothing at all.

It simply rests in truth,

and lets the rest of the world move around it.

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If you’re reading this and something feels familiar, you don’t have to name it yet. You don’t have to decide anything or reinterpret your past. Just notice where your own commitments feel tight, and where they feel quiet. Notice which ones ask you to hold your breath, and which ones let you breathe. That noticing is not indecision—it’s intelligence. And it may already be telling you everything you need to know.

WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co