...about Commitment. How has it fit into my life in the past? What does it mean? Where do I see it fitting into my life in the future? Why can't I fully commit to something, even myself?
I believe I understand what commitment is yet have run from commitment most of my life. I was commited to running and running well when I was in high school and the first year and a half of college. I was commited to education and getting a Bachelor's degree for myself.
But when my brother died in a car crash, when I was 19, my life and my desires began to fall apart. Any commitment that I had was more and more difficult to keep. I found that I didn't want to do the actual work involved in keeping my commitment. Instead I started to use people to help me with my education without giving back the same amount of effort they gave. Right after my brother died, this reaction would probably be considered normal. But I just continued on with it as much as possible. Because my running was an individual passion, I strayed away from it. I just wanted to not feel any pain at all. Dealing with the physical pain and strain of running became unbearable with coupled with the emotional pain of my brother's loss.
While I stayed in college after my brother's death, I found my individual commitment to my learning dramatically lowered. I refused to reach out and ask for any help with classes. If I could not figure something out on my own, I just let it be and accepted whatever the consequences would be (such as a lower grade). I would drop out of classes if I failed the first midterm. I was a one person 'do it all', even though it didn't work. I knew at the time it wasn't working but continued with the same thoughts and actions.
Wow, this dynamic has now continued throughout my life. Why couldn't I learn a new paradym of facing life's challenges? Especially in college, where there are so many people or groups there to help you.
This pattern has continued throughout my life. Any difficult situation I've encountered has been followed by me finding a quick exit. Sometimes gracefully. Most times not. I would move residences, leave jobs, do anything to make a change. Always believing the grass was greener somewhere else.
In real estate, I found that I could ask questions of other agents but never felt that I could openly share my business plan with others. I felt as though they would steal my ideas and start to implement them. So I closed up professionally. This would easily lead to closing up emotionally with them too, even though many were going through the same issues and concerns that I had. I could have hired a coach to help me. Yet even that thought was scary and I was not sure I could open up to them.
Family wise, while I made the 'commitment' of marriage to my wife, I've never really been emotionally committed to her. I don't believe that one person could fulfill all of my needs. And if you can't fulfill a need, I guess I could find someone else to replace you. It's as if people are interchangable parts in my life. So after 50+ years there is very little resemblance of continuity in my life. Only putty and part time relationships now.
Looking back on my childhood, my father wasn't there as he was an alcoholic and divorced from my mother at age two. We lived with my mom and I had very little contact with my dad until my mid to late 20s. I never felt any love or commitment from him while I was growing up. Only felt abandoned. My mother was unable to emotionally commit to my life as she was barely surviving herself. She was incapable of financially raising four kids. She wrote bad checks just so we could eat. It was so bad that she even had us kids take checks into stores and see if we could cash them for groceries. While I understand today what was going on, at the time I could not emotionally or intellectually understand it. I was being asked to break the law by my own Mother.
I was already emotionally unstable as a little kid in my life. Having trouble processing anything in a positive way. I only knew that I had to scream and shout to get noticed. If I was good I would have to sit and wait while someone else got some attention. I wasn't getting attention or affection at home so I tried to get some at school. Any way I could. Any attention felt better than none. What I didn't understand at the time was that these actions by me would be the start of a pattern of seeking attention by any method possible, throughout the rest of my life.
So today I am left being in an emotional roller coaster of a life, looking for peace and serenity, yet not being able to accept peace and quiet. I have an inability to accept people into my life for any length of time. An inability to embrace others into my life, welcoming everything they could bring. The good, bad and ugly. It's time for a change.
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