Dear future hubster,
as a person who admittedly has issues in the relevant department, I understand that there are a number of things about commitment that are really, really scary.
Most people think that commitments are made once and for all. That, I'm afraid, is a misconception. Two misconceptions, actually.
"Once" being the first one. Commitments are not made one sunny day and stay that way. They are not a result of one big effort, like platform diving, one big deep breath, and one brave big jump. The trick with any commitment is that you have to keep making it, otherwise it is but an empty promise you made one sunny day. You may think it's daunting; I think it's liberating. For the important things in my life, I want to make the decision consciously and actively as often as I can. The things and the people I believe in, I stand by, I choose. Continuously.
The other misunderstanding is that a commitment is "for all". Of course it's scary to think that your promise is forever. And it's mostly and primarily unsettling because deep down you know that it's not in your control to keep that promise, for forever tends to be, well, unclear. We don't even know what that means!
Dear future hubster, you can't promise forever. I can't either. Nobody can. It may be sad, because we all want that comfort of a promise made, that everything is going to be all right, that we will love and live happily ever after, but it also takes a bit of weight off our shoulders. Because we can't promise forever, we don't have to.
Because we don't know how much time we have, and have very little say in what happens in that time, we can commit to making the 'now' count.
We can promise today. And maybe tomorrow. We can't promise that everything will be all right, but we can promise we'll do our best to do, keep, make things right. We can't promise we will love and live happily ever after, but we can promise that we will try.
Little by little, one day at the time. Not quite once and for all.
