This is a complicated promise. It’s about commitment and connection and most of all, time.
If we’re saying that we’ll do what’s in our short-term interest and convenient, then there’s really no reason to say anything at all, since that’s what we usually do anyway.
Instead, we’re promising to shift our time horizon. To show up when we don’t feel like it, especially then. To invest focus and time and resources when there may be other more compelling short-term options.
Commitment is a reward in itself. It gives us boundaries and structure, and also creates meaning. Commitment only counts when it costs us something, and that cost usually involves shifting time.
Because we said we would.