Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing

You exert your will to choose something bigger than yourself at the outset of a commitment, but because it is bigger than yourself, what it eventually asks of you is also bigger than your original choice.

What accounts for this hesitation? Why do we love committers but act like browsers? I think it’s because of three fears. First, we have a fear of regret: we worry that if we commit to something, we will later regret having not committed to something else. Second, we have a fear of association: we think that if we commit to something, we will be vul... See more

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote that we must choose between being an anvil or a hammer. We’ll either mold the world, or be molded by it. If you never go deep, you will always be the anvil. And the surest path to being the hammer is depth.

That’s what commitments are—alternatives to self-obsession. Commitments free us to dedicate ourselves to something bigger than ourselves—to something beyond our shells. The French philosopher Jacques Maritain said that the meaning of life is “self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving.” This is the challenge of growing up—to turn the corner from s... See more