Commitment and Optionality, Power and Freedom
I hate scheduling things on my calendar. And yet I live by my calendar. I love the structure of knowing exactly what I’ve committed to. My favorite moments are opening my calendar and discovering a whole block of unscheduled time. A whole unscheduled day. Now I get to work on whatever I want.
The underlying reason is obvious: freedom. Committing to things in the future limits optionality, limits freedom. So why commit to anything?
Because commitment gives others the gift of structure and certainty. Nobody likes hearing “I don’t schedule things, text me on the day and I’ll see if I’m available.”
What’s happening is a trade-off between self and other. I remove a quantum of freedom from my day and convert it into a quantum of certainty for someone else. A gift of energy.
But it’s not entirely altruistic. It’s hard to impact the world alone. Coordinating with this interconnected network of human beings gives us leverage to further our own goals. Becoming a recluse provides plenty of freedom and optionality, but how long before the nagging desire to go do something in the world takes hold?
My wife once said that a measure of your power is your capacity to take responsibility for others. You can calculate it by the number of people whose livelihoods depend on you. The boss of a big company, the president of a country, a parent to a young child - people’s lives depending on your decisions. What a privilege to have that trust.
You can choose freedom or power. Or maybe the practice is finding freedom within that power.