Spiders are scary. The thought of a spider crawling up your leg or crawling up your bedroom wall in the middle of the night is probably absolutely terrified to some people. But there is something even more terrifying than the thought of a spider, that's commitment.
When did commitment become so terrifying, so tempting to hide from? Maybe it starts with a memory, an experience, a dream, or a nightmare. Maybe your parents were divorced at a young age and the thought of spending the rest of your life with just one person is just too much to bear. Maybe your parents are still together but the situation isn't ideal so you've sworn never to be like them. Maybe you've had your heart broken yourself and you are now convinced that no one will ever want to spend the rest of their existence with you. Or, love has nothing to do with it. The future is a scary thing to wrap your mind around. When you go to college you are asked what it is you want to study, what you want you specialty to be and that is what you will do for the rest of your life after your time at college, mastering that skill. But, there a lot of specialties to pick from, there are a lot of jobs out there in the world. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you decide on something and then 5 years later you find out you hate it, what now? When you go to sign up for a phone contract, the fine print tells you that you can't cancel the contract for 3 years. You have no idea what you're signing up for; this could be the worst decision of your life thus far. This is scary stuff here.
Commitment used to be taken a lot more seriously then it is now. Granted, I wasn't around to see that for my own eyes, but I watch movies, I read books, I hear stories. It used to be sacred, it used to be special, and from what I hear when you were making a commitment, you would know for sure, no hesitation, no doubt. So where did all of this doubt come from? When did people stop being sure? I don't know the answer to that question. It could be because we live in a very complicated time. We have everything we could ever want at our fingertips, what we want when we want it. Some people call that amazing, I call it complicated. Because, with all of these choices, how is anyone ever going to be sure what they want? That could just be your personality, you know what you want and when you want it, you're a lucky one. But for others, they need time. They need options, they need reason, and they need time. The thought of choosing just one thing, that's scary.
There are a lot of things that go into making one decision. You weigh its pros, its cons; how this will affect you now, and later, will this affect the people around you? Life isn't simple anymore it's complicated. And with those complications, decisions become harder to make and commitment becomes absolutely terrifying, scarier than a spider crawling up your bedroom wall.