Tuesday, August 14, 2001

PEOPLE
By Bob Garon
‘Commitment: everything it truly means’

In every successful human endeavour, commitment is essential. The truly committed

athlete stands a better chance of victory than the more talented but less committed one. The
businessman who sets out on a new venture needs to have a high level of commitment if setbacks
and discouragement are not to cause him to surrender.

The same is true of love and marriage. It is love that draws two people to each other, but
it is commitment that helps them heal the wounds caused by hurt and misunderstanding. It is
commitment that urges love to go on when it is tempted to turn around. It is commitment that
will allow love to surrender. It is commitment that rescues love from almost certain death. It is
commitment that moves love forward even when it is badly wounded.

They say that marriage isn’t all peaches and cream. Sometimes the peaches taste bitter
and the cream sours. When this happens, lovers who do not have a strong commitment tend to
turn away from promises made. They tend to abandon the dreams, the plans made when the
warmth of love enveloped them.

It is easy to love when the fires are burning intensely. No skill is needed. No disciplined
approach is required. One gets carried away by the intense feelings generated by desire. Feelings
may not even know why they are feeling. There may even be little rhyme or reason to one’s love.
Just a confused mix of feelings that sweep one forward in a euphoria that is difficult to describe.

Sooner or later, however, the dust settles and the clouds dissipate to reveal the less
pleasant dimensions of the beloved. And all of us have a flip side to the goodness we exhibit.

When this happens, commitment is needed to go in. Otherwise, we are taken up with the
focus on the drawbacks of the relationship. Consequently, we get sucked into discouragement
and soon begin to disengage. The process of disengagement will speed up depending on the
weakness of the commitment. The weaker the commitment, the swifter the disengagement. This
is why puppy love dies so quickly. There is so little commitment to begin with that love doesn’t
stand a chance. It gets swept away by the first winds that blow.

This is why lovers must work hard to raise the level of their commitment before even
thinking about marriage. To do so is like gathering lots of supplies before undertaking a long
journey. It is like working out in preparation for the hardship that one is sure to experience
during that journey. It means locking onto a goal and never losing sight of it. It means giving so
much value to the relationship that one becomes determined that nothing, absolutely nothing,
will break it. It means having the determination to find a solution to every problem, an answer to
every question, and a strategy for every circumstance. It means making the relationship the top
priority and not allowing anything to dislodge it from its place of honor. It means doing whatever
is necessary to save it.