Commitment is one quality that heavily defines who we are as human beings. It is a reflection of not only our values and beliefs, but also of how strongly we feel about them. We can only truly commit ourselves to doing what we love because we need to love what we are doing to devote ourselves entirely to it.
At Georgetown, students come from all walks of life. When the Intercultural Center Auditorium is filled to capacity during an economics lecture, we sit among Pell Grants recipients, the progeny of millionaires, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Nigerians, Koreans, homosexuals, heterosexuals, bisexuals, suburbanites, and urbanites. We are musicians, sailors, writers, debaters, and scientists. We like to think of ourselves as a community, and we tend to get along.
But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes there are cases—occasionally extreme—where one of us is singled out for our religious beliefs, race, or, as in the assault case earlier this month, our sexual orientation. In more moderate cases, people disagree and argue over education reform and what the U.S. should do regarding the intervention in Syria. In Red Square, Vita Saxa and H*yas for Choice table side-by-side while trying to avoid making eye contact with each other.
How do we resolve incidents of bias that occur on a campus that also holds events to promote tolerance, such as interfaith sandwich-making? While different people holding different commitments can lead to friction or conflict, commitment to higher values, such as pluralism, helps keep us in check and define us as either militant and biased or open-minded and understanding. Therefore, a homophobe is one who commits homophobic actions instead of practicing tolerance. We weigh our adherence to our own biases against our obligations to common ideals according to how committed we are to one or another
set of ideals.
If we hold this idea to be true, then commitment must also vary by degree. We can be devoted to some activities more than others. Many Hoyas involve themselves in multiple clubs on campus, but they invariably end up committing themselves to some more than others. These clubs end up defining them, and their levels of dedication become indicative of their reliability in other aspects of life. By throwing ourselves into our activities, we display our zeal for that cause or organization and, as a result, end up in leadership positions because we’ve proven ourselves to be trustworthy and capable of handling greater responsibilities. We assume that no one wants to see something they care about crumble under their stewardship. When our club activities conflict with our academic assignments, what we decide to prioritize defines us as athletes, actors, or academics.
Realizing this, we find ourselves deciding what we want to commit ourselves to. In our considerations, we sometimes find ourselves weighing our chances at leadership positions, how leadership positions of that organization will look on our resume, and whether or not it is an organization that we believe in and enjoy being a part of.
We must be careful not to subvert the latter for ambitious motivations: seeking a position just because we think it will look more attractive on a resume. When we don’t pursue what we love, we sabotage our own happiness. If we attain leadership positions in organizations we don’t care about, we will find ourselves burned out and doing the bare minimum to get by without leaving the organization worse off than we found it. If we do something we want to devote ourselves to, our enthusiasm will shine through and when we do get those leadership positions we will be poised to leave that club better off than we found it. We will have the energy and desire necessary to innovate. Arguably, the type of organization you join doesn’t matter quite as much as what you end up bringing to the table.
Commitments define us. Our beliefs, interests, and the intensity with which we dedicate ourselves to them say much more about who we are to our friends, families, and future employers than any title, position, or GPA alone.
