“There’s a difference between interest and commitment. When you’re interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you’re committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.”- Unknown

It’s so easy to say that you want something, but saying and having are two different things. People often talk about what they want without a true understanding for what it cost to not only, get it, but keep it. It looks attractive when you see what someone else has, but we rarely see all the work that person is doing to maintain it and no one talks about the sacrifices.

There are numerous books and websites dedicated to finding love. Everyone runs to those books and websites to find that person that is supposed to represent true love in their life. You don’t see as many people running to the section of the bookstore that talks about keeping love. Keeping love is so much harder and it is where the true work of being in love comes in. It’s easier to point the finger at the other person and make them the bad guy or to have an escape route when your partner is acting like a unlovable human being instead of the character in the love story in your mind.

The picture in our mind is so much easier to fall in love with every day than it is to stay in love with an imperfect human being who is a reflection of our imperfect self .  Here’s the reality: If you want love in your life, it’s not going  to feel like love every single day. Some days, it’s going to be hard. Some days, you are going to have to remind yourself why you love that other person. Some days, you will have to sacrifice, do things you don’t like and take a back seat to another human being. If you have chosen well, you will be in a relationship with someone who will do the same thing for you. Relationships are never 50/50. At every point in a relationship, one person is giving more than the other, but it’s important that it swings in both directions.

If you are keeping one hand on your emotional emergency exit within your relationship, you will never get the true love you are seeking. It’s when you give yourself no escape route and truly commit that you start to learn how to love and how deep love can be. A loving relationship is not absent of hard times, misunderstanding, fights and sad times. Instead, it is those challenges that help each other partners learn more about themselves and their partner and show each other the depths of love that are possible. Also, you and your partner have to commit to work through them and to make sure that you share equally happy, intimate and special moments.

Commitment isn’t only in relationships. There are multiple instances in your life where you must commit. You must commit to being a great parent. You must commit to being a great employee or business owner. You must commit to a home, a car or a financial plan for your life. Choices are commitments. If you spend your life avoiding commitment, you will constantly face the same choices over and over. Often, when faced with commitment, we hold so tightly to what we feel we have to sacrifice. It requires our time, focus, energy, dedication and we even have to give up some comfort. But, we often don’t pay attention to what we gain in return. The Universe won’t ever ask you to give up something without the expectation of giving you so much more in return when you answer the request.

When you decide what you want, it is going to require you to make a real commitment. Commitment starts with a choice, but that same choice must be made over and over despite circumstances and surprises. Your commitment should rest somewhere in your heart instead of being based on conditions or the actions of other people. Sunshine or rain, you have decided that this is what you want and you will endure. If you can do that, you have taken the journey of the hero. The hero will not be deterred until he has saved who he is supposed to save and he fights through any obstacles and monsters to get there. The commitment you make and the person you save is always yourself. Be the hero in your life and commit to making choices that will give you the best life.

“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”- Joseph Campbell