Insights

My whole life I've struggled with commitment - not commmitment to people, commitment to choices that I've made. I realized late in high school that I wasn't committed enough to soccer (as much as I loved it, and still love it today) to do only that. I didn't want to play Division I soccer (not that I had a bunch of options there) because it would have meant giving so much else up. I've always wanted to do much more than that one thing I love.

I realized later on that this feeling was about more than just soccer. I realized when I graduated that, though I loved writing and photography enough to work hard and get a degree with pretty good grades in both, I didn't love it enough to sacrifice everything (money and a way of life I was comfortable with outside of finances) to work 16 hour days for very little financial reward.

For years I've been jealous of people who know what they want, have always known what they want, and work however hard and sacrifice however much in financial stability and lifestyle, to get there and do what they love. I've never known something that engenders that kind of passion in me.

Interestingly, while trying to get some things done around the house today, I have Keeping the Faith on in the background. I love this movie, and have seen it probably 15 times. But there's a line I don't remember, and never really hit me until today. The line makes me feel a little bit better about choices I've made.

In a conversation about being a priest, Edward Norton's character is talking about giving up the priesthood if the girl he's in love with had kissed him back. He says to his mentor that he remembers being told in seminary that, "The life of a priest is hard, and if you can see yourself being happy doing anything else, you should do that."

The other priest laughs, and says that this is a great recruitment speech he gives to new priests because it inspires them, but that "The truth is that you can never tell yourself that there is one thing that you could be. If you become a priest, or if you marry a woman, it's the same challenge. You cannot make a real commitment unless you accept that it's a choice that you keep making again and again and again."