No escape hatch

   The words freedom and commitment appear to be opposites when viewed through the lens of human nature.
  Yet look closer at their definitions: Commitment means anchoring yourself so
you can explore more deeply; freedom means finding joy in the path you’ve chosen.
  Something surprising emerges. These words don’t oppose each other.
  They complete each other.
In Everyday Zen, Charlotte Joko Beck fine-tunes this relationship with uncommon clarity.
  She observes that most of us think of freedom as being left alone to go where we want and do what we want; since life is unpredictable, we like to leave a door cracked open - an escape
Hatch - just in case.
  But Beck argues that this very habit is what keeps us from the freedom we’re chasing.
  Honesty, a requirement in meditation, she says, pulls the curtain back on our schemes to maneuver around the hopes and fears that reflect our lack of commitment to our own lives. Beck notes, “To do this requires that we shut the door that we like so much to leave open, and turn around and face ourselves as we are. This is commitment, and without it there is no freedom.” (Sidebar - If I didn’t know better I believe the author wrote that last quote for me.)
Eckhart Tolle echoes this in The Power of Now, reminding us that the present moment is the only place where life actually exists — and that our endless maneuvering toward better circumstances is simply the ego’s refusal to be here.
  Presence, like commitment, requires the closing of a door.
You cannot be fully now while keeping one eye on the exit.
  Beck also draws a sharp distinction between promises and commitments - words we often use interchangeably, but which never truly align.
  She warns us to be on guard the moment any commitment contains the word if.
  “I’m committed to you if…”
  What a poisonous if that is.
  True commitment carries no conditions.
  True love leaves no escape hatch.
  She anchors this in the words of Jesus that whatever we do for the least among us, we do for Him.
  Unconditional. No clause. No asterisk.
  The oldest example of commitment ever spoken brings us to the revelation that commitments to our faith, careers, relationships, and to ourselves must align with even the smallest of life’s details once we awaken to the realization that we are one with all things, the totality of the whole.
We live in a culture that prizes optionality - leaving emotional side exits in our relationships, our vocations, our faith.
  We call it flexibility.
  Beck and Tolle would both call it fear dressed in reasonable clothing.
  In other words, freedom was never found in the having of options.
  It was always found in the depth of one: one choice, one path, one door closed with intention.
  When we stop running from ourselves, we finally arrive somewhere worth being.
  Thank Goodness for His forgiveness, mercy and grace.
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