Commitment
Peter Davis1 delivered the Graduate English Address as a Harvard Law School graduate at Harvard’s 2018 Commencement. His speech is titled A Counterculture of Commitment.
The defining characteristic of our generation, says Davis, is keeping options open to the point that commiting to something—even trivial like watching a whole movie—becomes strange. We are stuck in infinite browsing mode, not only in our devices but for everything in our lives.
It’s OK to keep our options open but if we want to do something meaningful at all we need commitment.
Commitment implies saying no to other things and closing doors. Commitment also means letting go of the novelty of the new and shinny, and embrace the everyday battles against the small but effective enemies of our work.
When Hollywood tells tales of courage they usually take the form of slaying the dragon. It’s all about the big brave moments but I’ve been learning from these heroes that the most menacing dragons that stand in the way of reforming the system or repairing the breach are the everyday boredom and distraction and uncertainty that can erode our ability to commit to anything for the long haul.
It’s why I love that the word “dedicate” has two meanings. First it means to make something holy. Second it means to stick at something for a long time. I don’t think this is a coincidence. We do something holy when we choose to commit to something and in the most dedicated people I have met I have witnessed how that pursuit of holiness comes with a side effect of immense joy.
Worth watching in full, just 8 minutes.
(Link to video on youtube
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Davis is a writer, community organizer, entrepreneur, and political activist. Before and during law school, he helped found projects including Harvard Thinks Big, the community-engagement website OurCommon, and the tiny-home company Getaway. ↩︎