Commitment, to Me
I have a few friends getting married this year; generally, I’ve managed to avoid the wedding onslaught that seems to plague recent college grads. For the most part, I stand on the outskirts of the fray that is wedding planning.
The advertising that goes into the wedding business is dangerously coercive. It’s your one chance, they tell you. You can’t put a price on forever. In essence, it’s your one chance to blow as much money as possible. During my engagement, ads like these disgusted me. I hated knowing that the ads worked, that brides would decide to spend their money on an illusion of security embodied by twenty-dollar slices of cake, antique cake toppers, and lighting designers. While I knew exactly what my wedding was costing my parents, I also knew that my marriage wouldn’t come without a cost.
Ah, but that’s a different cost. It’s not a bottom line on my spreadsheet or a profit margin in a bar graph. It’s personal, which means that no advertiser can grasp it.
Commitment, for me, is not the dress that hangs in my closet (unpreserved) or the crystal bowl holding my bouquet. It’s not the financial burden my parents took on so that a lot of people could be at our wedding. Instead, the commitment comes because I said, “I promise.”
I take you to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, according to God’s holy ordinance. I promise to love you as Christ loves the church and to be faithful to you as Christ is faithful to the church. I will love you, comfort you, and honor you, forsaking all others and keeping myself only for you, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.
These are strong words, but we said them knowing that the promise did not mean, “I will always be perfect.” It meant, “I will always try.” When being loving, faithful, and comforting gets to be too much for this flawed person, I’m able to stand on that first line.
I take you … to have and to hold.
So we hold on. We try our very hardest everyday and occasionally, we manage to be successful. The vows are for aspiration, but commitment helps us learn.
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Note from RA: This post is my last at LongRelationships.com. I’d love to keep in touch at my original blog, Definitely RA.
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June 16th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Feedback Needed for Web-Based Self-Therapy Exercise
Dr. Gary Laundre, a respected behavioral therapist of Grand Rapids, Michigan has launched a new website with a simple self-therapy exercise that he hopes will help thousands of people release certain fears, phobias, and anxiety issues that are tied to past experiences. He’s providing the service at no cost.
“Just because we’ve survived our past doesn’t mean we are stronger for it. All of that hurt and all of the effort to keep the lid on the “trash can” of our past keeps piling up and spilling into our present and into our future. The only way we can truly be stronger is to empty the trash.”
The new website http://www.thehappinesscode.com is linked to Dr. Laundre’s new book called “The Happiniess Code - The Amazing New Science of Creating Our Ultimate Comfort Zone.” The book describes the science that has allowed him to increase his success rate with virtually all of his clientele. The book explains the exercises (provided at the website) along with a dejunkification process that is designed to expand peoples’ comfort zones so that better relationships, career choices, and freedom from fear can eventually take place.
All of the tools provided at the website are given away at no cost. Why is he doing this?
“It boils down to a belief that when something is given to one of us that is truly helpful to all of us, then it should be distributed widely to as many people as possible,” says Laundre. “If we and our neighbors release our fears and all the baggage that goes with it, we’ll all be a little happier.”
Dr. Laundre realizes that people might resist this new science if the first step required money. So he’s taking all of the financial risk out of the decision. He invites even the skeptical person to give it a try, “You may be skeptical about whether the Code really works. That’s fine. But why not try it? It only takes a few minutes of your time. If you’re serious and you follow directions, you’ll benefit from it.”
For those who do experiment with this new technology, a blog has been set up (http://thc2007.blogspot.com) to collect feedback. Dr. Laundre invites anyone with relationship issues, or problems with phobia, fear, or anxiety to try “the Code.”
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August 20th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
[...] weeks ago, I gave my notice at 451 Press. This morning, I published my final post at [...]