Commitment is Intentional

Commitment is purposeful intentionality.

I recently watched the 2023 movie, Blackberry, which chronicles the rise and fall of the groundbreaking Blackberry cell phone. The original parent company, Research in Motion (RIM), was founded and run by likable but passive Mike Lazaridis and equally likable and fun Douglas Fregin. They had the ideas and engineering know-how to build the Blackberry phone. As is often the case, however, they did not have the ambition, determination, drive, competitive, take-no-prisoners personalties of eventual Co-CEO Jim Balsillie and eventual COO of engineering, Larry Conlee. These men were not likable, but they were committed to forward-moving purposeful intentionality that quickly moved RIM from a laid-back company with an idea, but nothing tangible to show for it, to a market leader in cell phone production and sales.

What does this have to do with marriage? The point is definitely not to be unlikable; the point is to be intentional and committed to the implementation of purposeful concepts that will improve one’s marriage. It is not enough to know the concepts but to passively do marriage in the same lazy ways as those who don’t know the concepts. The opportunity is to say a loud and determined, “No” to practices that would not work in any marriage (such as harshness, selfishness, self-defensiveness, and putting the relationship second, third, or last to careers, kids, or personal interests) and saying a strong and unrelenting “Yes” to practices that would make our marriage strong regardless of who we married.

Passively waiting for the marriage to improve while continuing to do what we’ve always done, like most marriages of which we are aware that are equally troubled, is not going to change or improve our marriage. Change and improvement require changing things—thinking, feeling, and doing differently than before—in order to bring improvement.

It’s like owning exercise equipment or having a gym membership. Neither improves our physical condition. Using that exercise equipment and going to the gym and working out improves our physique. And the harder we work out, the more dogged the determination we put into the practice of healthier patterns (wisely, not to the point of injury), the more positive change we will see as a result.

So, yes, be likable, but also be determined to tenaciously practice what will achieve the goal of a good marriage, and commit to expelling practices that hinder that goal.

In this balance, it is worth noting the dichotomy that exists between the paths and end-results of the Mike and Doug approach as compared to the Jim and Larry approach. The passive, fun-loving Mike and Doug approach produced a company that scored high on relationships, but low on productivity. The Jim and Larry approach scored high on productivity but low on relationships. That is generally the trade-off, at least in those arenas where the means to productivity are not pleasant, such as the production floor and the cut-throat jungle of corporate competition. There, it’s a battle. The commanders can’t be gentle, hand-holding, empathic, emotionally sensitive comforters; they must be take-charge leaders demanding diligent hard work amid challenging, unpleasant, or even dangerous conditions. The “win” is tangible, not relational, unless you count the good feeling one gets from having achieved a hard-earned, measurable victory. The path to that victory, however, was tough, not tender; the demands likely strained or even severed some relationships along the way, especially where those relationships got in the way of productivity. (Fun-loving but unproductive production chief Doug Fregin was eventually ousted.)

By contrast, a focus upon the feelings between people will bring about a relational win, but usually at a cost to productivity. That is, there will be pursuits that won’t be pursued, or not with as much commitment and determination, because time and energy are willfully applied to relationships, instead. There will be things that won’t be built, or not as quickly. There will be athletic skills that won’t be as developed. There will be academic pursuits and GPAs that won’t be as impressive as they could have been, had we been willing to trade time deserved by our loved ones for more time studying. There will be aspects of our lives that don’t pass Pinterest or Facebook standards because we chose to spend more casual time with our kids, spouse, relatives or friends in ways that didn’t result in a great picture to post online.

The difference in marriage is that there need not be a dichotomy. In marriage, the ideal is that both spouses are doggedly pursuing the production of the same tangible “product”—a good, mutually-satisfying, loving, committed marriage, even amid all the other interests, responsibilities, and demands that face us. We are building the relationship, and that is the mutual win. The relationship and the product are not in competition, because they are one and the same. If both partners have this mindset, then this strong marriage will be built because of the committed team’s dogged determination to do so.

The mind-shift to make this work is that of a “new win.” If the win is the relationship, then the investments we make will be different from those we’d make if the win were only product-oriented, financial, career-driven,  academic, or financial. Thankfully, in order to be happily married, we don’t need to be directionless, unproductive, uneducated and poor. This is where the research-verified concept of Shared Meaning comes into play.

I know husbands and wives who both serve as officers in the companies they’ve founded and whose operation they maintain. The company is “their baby;” they are committed to it in much the same way that most couples are committed to their children. The company, like their children, is central to their Shared Meaning. It sets the course for their pursuits and their expenditure of time, money, focus, and creative energy. They’re in it together, just as two committed parents mutually pour themselves into the health, well-being, and development of their children. Being parents is a shared pursuit to which both parents are committed; it charts their shared course. The same can be true of a shared business, or even different businesses, or different careers, as each spouse supports the pursuits of the other because they don’t take away from “us,” but are made part of “building us” by including rather than excluding one another in the process.

In the process of the pursuits—shared or distinct—the marriage is not neglected. It gets fed, just as do the children. It gets time and attention, just like the children. It gets resources, just like the children. The marriage is practically another child, needing all of the love, nurture, time, positive attention and committed intentionality as the little lives whose health is largely in our hands.

Products are produced and made profitable passively. Healthy children aren’t raised passively. And neither are healthy, productive, happy marriages. They take commitment to purposeful intentionality; the ejecting of what does not work and the dogged application of that which does.