As many of you know, my wedding is coming up in just a few days. So love and especially, commitment, is just something very much on my mind.

For much of my life, I was a total skeptic in marriage. Until I realized that what I was skeptic about, was other people's ideas of marriage. The institution of marriage as defined by western culture. A real eye opener for me was reading Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage. As a skeptic, I could totally relate. What broke my resistance was picking apart the meaning of marriage and commitment. Looking at it from other culture's perspectives. Learning and understanding all the preconceived notions our culture bestows on us and, gasp, making up my mind that I could come up with my very own meaning around this ritual!

Once at peace with the idea of marriage, the greater and more challenging concept to grasp was commitment. Yes, one needs commitment for marriage, but commitment is such a much larger term that goes across our whole lives. What is really worth committing to?

Around our careers, families, social lives, passions and interests, what is it that we can wholeheartedly say Yes to? Have we made enough choices so that everything we do comes from being committed?

committed, because we believe in the mission of the company we work for
committed, because we have experienced the support and commitment from others for us, and we want to give back
committed, because we are passionate about what we do and the ones we are with
committed... --you get to fill in your own blank here.

It all comes down to that most things are just not worth doing if you are not committed to them, for one reason or another. The amazing fact of life is that we get to make a lot of choices. Often, there are so many more possible choices than we dare to admit. And then being committed to making the choices right for us.

It is not we as individuals, then, who must bend uncomfortably around the institution of marriage; rather, it is the institution of marriage that has to bend uncomfortably around us.― Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage