Commitment

Most of us are so busy we jump from one thing that must be done NOW, to the next.

I tick off plenty of achievements - but somehow, when I look back on my week or month, or even when I reflect on my career or my life, I get the feeling that I have been so busy that I have somehow missed my life.

Life seems to be absorbed by doing things.

American writer Wayne Dyer makes a point that means a lot to me: I am a human being, not a human doing. Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. 

As I say, we are all really busy; we have so many things to do - and sometimes, because of that, we miss out on our lives. In our rush to do, we miss out on being - being alive, appreciating the world and people around us, the tastes and smells and textures of seemingly ordinary things around us. We gulp down coffee, wolf down food, scan headlines, glance at the snow-covered mountains, and are satisfied if we can just touch base with people we love and who love us.

Last weekend I was reminded of that very strongly. I was honoured to be asked to sponsor one of our teachers when she was received into the Catholic Church - and this weekend I will be there again for her Confirmation and First Communion.

That really made me think. She clearly appreciates working in a Catholic environment. But the thing that made me think is her next step: making a commitment to be an active part of that Catholic environment, a commitment to find out more about it, a commitment to become one of the standard-setters of Catholic values and expectations.

WOW!

Commitment may be one of the most important things about being human. Maybe the most fully human people are those who purposefully gather data, examine it, and then make a conscious and deliberate decision to act on that, to live their lives based on that. It is this that makes the difference: gathering and sorting information is not the same as taking the next step - committing to change ourselves in the light of our new perception.

I read somewhere recently that 90% of people who are told to change their unhealthy lifestyle or they will die, do not change their lifestyle. Nine out of 10 of us cannot commit even to saving our own lives!

So when we see a person commit to a new way of seeing, a new way of being, we are in awe! And we should be: we are in the presence of one of the most important and defining characteristics of being human. We are in the presence of someone who has taken Jesus at his word: he came to to offer us the "fullness of life". He offers it to each one of us - but not all of us make the commitment to accept a life more full.