Are you committed?

There is a difference between being committed to doing a thing and making a commitment to doing a thing.  Do you know what it is?

Making a commitment is simply agreeing to do something. It is a verbal contract  between you and another person. You are telling them that a certain thing will occur, usually by a certain point. It is specific and measurable and definitely has the potential to be a powerful tool for mature responsible adults to use in getting things done.

Yet, if you are not committed to this agreement it is worthless and will most likely be broken. Perhaps you just agreed to make the other person happy and you really have no or very little interest in seeing this thing through. Maybe some challenge or obstacle will come up and you will decide that this thing is too hard or not worth the effort. Or you will be too busy or may be you will use the excuse of not feeling well to avoid keeping your word.

Being committed to a thing, on the other hand, is like a thing of beauty. It turns you into an unstoppable force of nature as far as that thing is concerned. When you are fully committed to something, no matter what it is, there is an almost palpable energy about you. There is never any doubt that you will do what it is that you say you will. You know inside yourself that no shit no kidding, no matter what, you will accomplish this goal. Nothing will get in your way. Obstacles and challenges have no chance of stopping or even really slowing you down. And anything that does get in your way you will steam roll right through until success is yours.

A commitment that you are truly committed to becomes a thing that you will accomplish or die trying. It is also the only commitment truly worth making. It is a guarantee. Everything else is just a maybe.

How does one become committed to a a goal rather than just making a commitment to see that goal happen? Just like every other important powerful thing that a person does or can do, it comes down to simply making a choice to do so.

You can agree to take the trash out after dinner or you can commit to it. When you agree, other things might get in your way. You might fall asleep at your chair or you might get caught up in watching the television and forget. When you commit nothing is getting in your way. After dinner you will get up and take out the trash.

You can make a commitment to stop being late to work or you can be committed to being on time from this day forward.  If you just make the commitment, you may oversleep or leave later than you are supposed to. If you are committed to being on time you will take whatever steps are necessary to get there on time.

You can promise yourself that you will start taking steps to improve your life or you can actually commit to doing so.

Commitment pt1

I made a commitment to myself to write something in this blog everyday. Some days the muse is with me and I have no trouble at all coming up with a topic to write about and am filled with things to say. Often this is to the point where I end up making several posts at once to keep you from being ambushed by a veritable wall of text. And other days I simply sit here and stare at this screen with no idea what to do or say. I have since renegotiated that commitment to I will write an average of one post per day. And on the days that I am "ahead", if I decide not to write anything, then I am okay with that.

But what is a commitment? Simply put, it is a promise that something will or will not occur.  The act of saying that you will make sure something happens is a commitment. It is a promise, even if you do not, at any point, actually say the word promise. When you start a new job and your prospective employer tells you that the job starts at eight,  by telling him or her that you want the job, you are committing to showing up no later than eight o'clock .  Every time you stroll in at 8:03 like nothing is wrong you are breaking that commitment. When you get your driver's license you sign your name to a form stating that you agree to follow all the traffic laws. You are making a commitment not to speed, run red lights, or hit other cars.  Every single time you are on the highway and you decide to go ten miles an hour over the speed limit just because that is what everyone else is doing, you are breaking that commitment.  When you say that you will stop an addictive habit such as drinking, doing drugs or smoking, every time you indulge in the habit you are breaking a commitment.

You might say, so what, nobody is getting hurt when I break my commitments. That simply isn't true though.  In the workplace, when someone is late, or worse yet doesn't show at all, others often end up shouldering the increased workload. In a car, you are much more likely to hurt yourself and others when breaking traffic laws than when you are not. You may be careful and even have quick enough reaction timing to keep control of your vehicle when doing something risky or even stupid, but the people around you may not.  The laws aren't there just to govern you. They are there for the safety of everybody.  And with drinking, drugs and smoking, there is always at least one victim, even if it is just you.  The worst thing of all though, is other people notice when you break commitments, even if it is only subconsciously.  If you do it enough, your word will completely lose all value in the eyes of others. Saying one thing and then doing something different is quite often called lying, especially if you had no intention of keeping the commitment in the first place.

Does the thought of your word having no value bother you? Does it hurt to think you are showing the world they should just ignore you because nothing you say has any meaning?

That would drive me crazy. Come back tomorrow for pt2

You ARE God pt4

I have suggested that you become a god. But what I really mean is for you to step up and accept that you are already and have always been a god. You are already THE Author of your life. You, through a combination of action and inaction cause every event in your life to happen to you. You decide whether you live or not day in or day out. You decide whether or not you pay your bills with the money you have. You decide what level of negativity you are willing to put up with from the people around you both in your work and your home life. You decide whether or not to be in an abusive relationship. You decide whether or not you are a powerhouse of love and positivity or a force of hate and destruction.

Step up and be proud of the power that you have to create and control your destiny. Admit to yourself that you are responsible for everything that has ever or will ever happen to you. Take some time and accept that all the bad as well as the good is your doing. It is much harder to accept that you could have avoided or changed the bad, that you could have done something to make it different. But don't beat yourself up about it.That is extremely unhealthy and serves no useful purpose. Admit that you could have done something and fully commit and resolve to make better choices in the future.

Then once you have done this commit to awakening others around you to the same basic facts. We are, all of us, each, individually gods. We each hold supreme power over our own lives and deaths. And by banding together one by one we can change our households at the very least. Then over time household by household we can change our cities and states. And eventually we can even change the whole world. That is my vision, my goal. I plan to change the world. I do not believe that it will be complete within my lifetime but I still see it as a worthy goal. Future generations will have a better world to live in because of my efforts and that thought alone makes me smile every time I think about it.

I do live in a household where we strive to be masters of our own destinies, where we are not slaves to the wants and desires of others, where we make choices based on positive goals and not based out of fear. It is with an open mind and a loving heart that we forge ahead and meet life's challenges head on. And I have to tell you, other people can feel it, they can sense the energy that we have. They don't know what it is but they like it and want to be around us but often do not really understand why.

It is an ancient pagan belief that everything in the universe is part of one being. All forms of matter are just parts of that being. Thus everything in the universe is god. In holding with that theory, I say this, in closing. We are all gods each with the power to change the world around us. Since we have the power to change things but haven't yet, we are directly responsible for the state that the world is in. That thought bothers me greatly, even though I believe it to be absolutely true. So I ask that you become a source of love and light,  own up to your divinity and join me, and assist me in changing the world into a place that we will be proud of it becoming.