My wife teased/made fun of me as I was leaving for work this morning. It's like 40° and raining here. The high is only going to be like 50°. Just as I'm about to walk out the door, Alli tells the baby, "Daddy is committed to wearing shorts."
Yes I'm wearing shorts today. See I have a rule where once I wear shorts for the first time when it gets warm, I wear shorts everyday until it's too cold. Despite my wife's teasing, she's right, I am committed to this. I realize this is probably a stupid hill to die on. It's also not a macho "I'm tougher than cold weather thing" either as I'm wearing three layers on my upper body.
It's simply that I've committed to shorts and I'm gonna keep the commitment. Here's the thing about the commitments: keeping commitments is a skill. That means that you can/should practice keeping commitments (assuming keeping commitments is important to you). So my (again, admittedly stupid) "commitment to shorts" has some merit.
See for me to stay committed on a day like today, it requires me to consider the importance of the commitment and whether or not I want to remain committed. It also teaches that keeping a commitment usually requires some forethought. A quick check of the forecast yesterday would've told me maybe a pair of tights or long socks would've been a good idea. This would've allowed me to wear shorts and not be cold and wet.
So even though this is a silly commitment it will have long term implications for my more important commitments in the future. Most of us only think of commitments as these big things that have a lot of meaning. In doing so we forgo a lot of opportunities to make smaller (& sillier) commitments. This robs us of the chance to practice our commitment keeping skills.
