Correcting Corrupted Commitments

In the last couple of months, I have written some posts relating to commitments and my fickleness in address them. Here, I would like to like to close this subject out some clarification and a written commitment in relation to making commitments.

A common theme associated with the thought of making a “commitment”, as far back as I remember is that, I had defined it in a negative sense, as though someone or something else out there would be putting pressure on me in the form of expectations, dependency or need. Thus, whenever it came to commitments, whenever I made them in relation to others, I would often speak words, deceptively designed to get what I wanted out of the deal, often  appearing as though I I were making an agreement, while in reality, my words contained conditions as getaway routes for me. I am speaking only of the words of so-called commitments I spoke, not the words of commitments I wrote. We tend to hear what we want to hear.

The case in point that I’m mainly speaking/writing of here, has to deal with my commitment to do extra work for the university. It is work that I wanted to do and would like to continue doing. Moreover, I didn’t want them to give this particular work to anyone else.  However, I have also come to realize that, work around here can pile up very quickly. Thus, when it came to committing to do the work, I specifically chose to “speak” words containing conditions, rather than “write” them down. Thus, from my perspective, on the surface I was being honest in stating my conditions. However, when I brought this point back to me to take complete responsibility for and direct it, I realized that as my starting point commitment included a point of deception, that one point of deception ended up corrupting the entirety of the agreement in relation to others.

Thus, in looking at my history of committing with sounds meant to deceive, I see that in attempting to manipulate others, I had only been deceiving myself. For example, last semester when my mom passed away, I ended up having to slow down and take some time off. From my perspective, this was Ok because I had specifically conditioned my “verbal” agreement to account for such a situation. However, as there was nothing in writing, I had little to say in reply to accusations that I had promised to do this work, period. In other words, in verbalizing my commitments conditioned with reasonable exceptions hidden in my sentences, I ended up corrupting my starting point with deception, thereby sentencing myself by own deception. Specifically, in choosing not to write out my and specify my commitment (opting instead for a little deception),  I ended up denying myself  (and others) a written record of my commitment - that would have included the conditions of my commitment.  Thus, whereas I had believed I was manipulating others by talking duplicitously, I was in reality only manipulating myself. Of this point, I now see/realize that, in all cases the best way for me to address and deal with any kind of commitment is to write it down as specifically as possible. Herein, the next time I find myself at a point of communicating the extent of my commitment or commitments, I commit to communicate self-honesty in writing, specifying the extent of my commitment including any conditions or reservations that I may have.