Jen A.

Arabia 134819
TH 151 BB
Term Paper #1

In Should Anyone Say Forever, John C. Haughey, SJ talks about the

interpersonal aspect of commitment, that is, those that people make to one another.
He limits the scope of the discusson to commitment as something given to or shared
with a paricular person or group of people of great significance in our lives. However,
I cannot help but associate things, rather than people, as objects of my commitment.
Because of this tendency, I will try to examine this disconnect using
Haugheys keypoints on the elusiveness of commitment, through personal
introspection, background and past experiences. This is not only an attempt,
however, of reducing commitment into words but also an application of concepts
insofar as this class has helped me make better decisions and thrust into the future
especially at this point of my life. I must say that taking this class in the first semester
of my senior year in college has been very helpful as I start going down the hill.
Law school has always been the plan; for how long it will remain as a plan,
however, I do not know. It is quite ironic how going to law school used to be that one
thing absolute in my life but has now become a total doubt all of a sudden. When I
was a kid, to become a lawyer was the default answer, an automatic response to
the eternal question of What do you want to be in the future? My dad would always
remind me to study well because he has been saving to send me to an excellent
school someday. He does not want me to go to law school, but he wants me to go to
the Ateneo Law School. Ever since, as you can see, the question of what I want to
be in the future never really appeared as a question to me. It was never a problem at
all because I always knew the answer. I did not have to think or bother to think about
it. I was grateful for having freed from the burden of having to worry about my future
because everything is planned.
This may seem very ideal at first, is it not? Unlike majority of the people out
there, especially in the Philippine context, I do not have, or did not have, rather, to
carry the burden of having to think about my life ahead because everything is fixed
since day one. Apparently, it is not as ideal as I thought it was now that I actually
thought about it.
 For the past years, I have been really focused on my goals in all aspects in
my life, especially in academics and extracurriclar activities. I always made sure that
everything I do directs me to that right path and contribute to the kind of person I
want to be, or conditioned to be, rather. I was too focused on my goals that it
actuallly took me a while to realize there is something wrong. It is very frustrating to
realize, or speculate at least, that maybe the only thing that keeps me going
everytime I lose the motivation is the thought that I have to go on because I have to
fulfill the goals I have set or was set for me from the start.
Maybe some would say that there is actually nothing wrong, or it is even a
good thing to keep up with ones set goals in the first place. However, this becomes
problematic if the goal has become stagnant in a way and the commitment that goes
with it is confned. The goals are being fulfilled for the sake of fulfillment itself. It has
become something that just needs to be attained wherein the commitment that goes
with it is confined to a set of objective goals, reduced into something definable or
limiited. One of Haugheys statements on the elusiveness of comitment alarmed me
even more, Concentration on ones commitment can be a sign of tension, an
indication that the commitment is in jeopardy or that motivation for preserving
in it is beginning to fade.
All these led me to a very problematic question at this point of my life to
whom or to what am I committed if I am at all? Am I committed to my parents or their
support and dream for me? Am I committed to myself or the objects of things that I
have done necessary to reach this crossroad? Am I committed to the people or their
expectations? Am I even committed at all? If yes, how could something so absolute
turn into a complete uncertainty all of a sudden? To whom or to what am I really
committed?
The problem here is that I have become so certain of something to the extent
of overcommitment. The moment one has become so sure of something that it has
become permament in a way becomes really intolerable of necessary change, is
when commitment becomes problematic. I lost sight, vision or perspective as I was
too focused on the commitment that was bestowed on me. The fact is, according to
Haughey, commitment is not something that is given but something that prospers
growth in one way or another in each and every person, For once the
spontaneity, the connaturality has gone out of it, the person all too often
continues committed to his commitment rather than to the [person] he initially
gave is word to Commitments are unique and so completely individual that
one wonders whether anytihng could be said about the subject that abstracts
from the individual and applies to the many.
Everything was a total adjustment when I got into Ateneo. Coming from a
small institution in an underrated province in the Visayas region, I had to adapt to an
all-new environment and deal with different kinds of people, not to mention the
pressure of being with the most outstanding students in the country. I was used to an
environment where I have always been the best when all of a sudden I was thrown
into a pool where everybody is; I drowned.
Now, I can only imagine the struggle during that ajustment phase. I would
always study and prepare for my exams and get things done on time. However,
there always seems to be something lacking. I would get good grades and
feedbacks from works done but a part of me always feels empty and craves for
more. It is only later when I realized that what what is lacking lies beyond the
superficiality of my conscious actions, of my being a depeer sense of meaning, a
stronger foundation for the things that I have been doing. It is not about achieving
more in number for commitment is not something that can be reduced into any unit
of measurement, but is transcendal and extends beyond what is measurable.
Commitment is not measured by the number of accomplishments but by something
too far, too deep to be easily grasped deep in ones being; thus, the elusiveness of
commitment.
From all these, I realized (though not fully understood due to the nature of the
subject) that commitment is not somehing that is presumed or given. It is something
that develops over time through experience and reflection. It does not contsraint
ones life into strictly observig or achieving what a set of objective goals alone but
allows one to grow and discover his or her calling. This is the definition of
commitment I was able to come up with, though I believe this is not all the subject is
all about. This is just a reflection of my experience with commitment; as Haughey
would put it into words, What I claim to see, therefore, will be colored by the
history of my own commitments, my fidelity, and my failures in this regard as
well as the fidelity and infidelity of those who have touched my life.
The fact that I would often associate the word commitment to my actions
today with regards to my goals in the future is not wrong but only lacks substance.
As of the moment, I may have yet to discover my calling but I am trying not to
overthink about how each and every action would affect my future. I will live the now
with more freedom to dig into that core of my actions called commitment in order to
to better understand, though not fully comprehend for now, the underlying why of the
more visible objects of my commitment. This is not to say, however, that I will
abandon my plan of enterting law school. Despite everything, I am still certain that
there has to be something, more than just the thrust of my parents, that brought me
to this crossroad, that enabled me to stay after everything that I have gone thorough.
In the Philippine context, it is disheartening to know the stories of those who
have studied so hard and mastered a particular field only to find out a shift or
disconnect between the things they do and the things thet want to do for the rest of
their lives the things, or people rather, they want to commit to. It is not new to know
that more and more graduate students do not actually practice what they have
struggled over for four years or more in college. As a result, their field of expertise is
not put into best practice, what is even worse is that it becomes worthless more often
than not. I find this scary given my stuation at the moment but I also share common
sentiments with my fellow students. As someone who has been in a very competitive
environment like Ateneo for almost four years now, I must say that it is undeniably
frustrating to see everybody aim for and reach the top. Most students are pressured
to do the same to the extent that education is unconsciously confused with
academics. That is, students are usually more concerned about getting high grades
rather than actually learning from the course a malpractice that hinders growth and
prevents one from dscovering his or her commitment.
This is alarming because schools, universities and other educational
institutions are the powerplant of intelligence that are supposed to serve as training
grounds for the future members of society. These institutions are the most important
as they lead the formation of a better nation by producing individuals who are
supposedly equipped to face bigger problems outside the boundaries of a school
campus. How can they do these without first adressing one of the root causes of the
increasing number of graduate students who are underemployed or find their area of
expertise useless after graduation? What most of us actually do not see here is a
problem that exsists, and most probably, may only be relatable among students of
this millennial generation with regards to an immemorial educational system. That is,
difficulty of identifying ones call in order to do more in the society. To make up for
this void due to the constant desire succeed, more and more students become
committed to their awards, tittles or goals per se only to feel empty after such the
fulfillment, not to mention the increasing number of suicide cases in the academe.