Thursday's Writing Essential January 31, 2013 Commitment

Thursday's Challenges have been pretty serious for awhile and in light of being under tornado watch and warning for most of the afternoon and early evening I had intended to post a challenge that was just fun with no real substance really a piece of fluff. That was my intent but there was something that has been disturbing me lately and the more I thought about it the more it caused me to think about it. I will have to save the fun challenge for another week.

There is a word in the English language that is better to show by our actions than by saying it. The word is commitment. In the Webster's Children's Dictionary a commitment is simply a promise. In that same dictionary the word promise is an agreement to do something. Both are easy to make but keeping a promise or following through on a commitment is an entirely different thing. Keeping a commitment and a promise is something that in days gone by especially in the southern United States was an act that people just did. Commitment/promises were rarely broken. Business was conducted with a handshake because a person was as good as their word. Reputations could be destroyed by breaking a promise. If a person felt like they just did not have enough time, money or other resources to see the commitment through until the end they did not make the commitment.

More and more commitments and promises are discounted even treated as trash these days. There are too many high school athletes who want to play in the big games but are not willing for the grind of the practices before the big games. There are too many professional athletes who look for drugs to enhance their performances sidestepping the commitment to work hard for the same results and not accepting the commitment that was implied when they signed their huge contracts. The commitment that they made was to be a roll model for young boys and girls who look on their lives and who want to be just like them. People are padding/adding to their resumes giving themselves jobs and college degrees that they never made the commitment to earn to gain a job or a career that they were never committed to the necessary experience and education to obtain.

For me time is very valuable but when I make a commitment I follow through on it. When Connie asked me to be Thursday's Editor, in spite of the fact that I had no clue as to how to be an editor, I made the commitment to weekly be as good an editor as I could be. At the same time Connie made the commitment when I became the Editor to field all of the many complaints about Thursday's Challenge. If I was not prepared for the time it took to be an editor I would not have agreed to it. I am not alone in this. I am honored to be included with 6 other more talented editors who have made that same commitment. I believe that in all things we lead and we teach by example. Keeping promises and making commitments is best taught by our own actions.

Your challenge for the last day of January 2013, Thursday January  31, 2013 is to create a post about Commitment.

Please keep in mind the guidelines that we need to follow each week. One guideline to remember is to include the words Commitment 1/31/2013 somewhere in the title.

Another guideline is to be sure to tag it with Thurs or Thursday Writing Essentials, Thursday Gather Writing Essential, Commitment Don't forget to Post your post  to Gather Writing Essential.

Another guideline is to not forget that there is a limit of three submissions from each member per day. If you’re extremely prolific, spread out your work and post only three submissions per day.

One last guideline is to please remember not to submit any response until Thursday actually happens (No earlier than 12:01 AM).

** Again  I still have not reached a point  where my plate is clear enough to be able to post a list of the responses to Thursday's Challenge. It is still my intent to to finally do that ASAP but it won't be this week either. I am very sorry.

***Any post submitted after Thursday will be accepted throughout the week as usual.