🏝 TREE 178: Five Good Things 3 – Commit to something or someone
In the good company of so many other privileged millennials, my mind changes pretty much daily. Whether it be about which cereal I should choose, which non-dairy milk I should pour onto it, what i should do for a career, or who I should share my life with. But I read an article recently that seemed to offer some good advice:
On the first mountain, personal freedom is celebrated — keeping your options open, absence of restraint. But the perfectly free life is the unattached and unremembered life. Freedom is not an ocean you want to swim in; it is a river you want to cross so that you can plant yourself on the other side.
So the person on the second mountain is making commitments. People who have made a commitment to a town, a person, an institution or a cause have cast their lot and burned the bridges behind them. They have made a promise without expecting a return. They are all in.
After a decade of living in London, I have moved back to Anglesey, where I’m from originally. (I do still like to try different milks though, in case you were wondering.)
This week’s guest author, illustrator and music chooser is Jess Lea-Wilson.
You can never have too much Running Up That Hill – as long as it’s Kate Bush or Meg Myers. Sorry, Placebo. —Jeff
The Memory of TREE playlist – every song from every email:
Related: The always excellent Ava quotes Pete Davies: 'But when you look at what we have real affection for—whom we admire, what we respect, and what we remember—it’s rarely the institutions and people who come from the Culture of Open Options. It’s the master committers we love. In our own lives, we keep swiping through potential partners, but when there’s a story online about an elderly couple celebrating their seventieth anniversary, we eat it up. In our own lives, we uproot often, but we line up to get into those famous corner pizza joints and legendary diners that have been around for fifty years.’
https://ava.substack.com/p/commitment-accountability