Are you truly committed – or just curious?
Are you truly committed – or just involved?
Are you truly committed – or just concerned?
Are you truly committed – or just interested?
Are you truly committed – or just legally obligated?
Are you truly committed – or just not unhappy enough to change?
Are you truly committed – or just biding your time until something better comes along?

Excerpt from a post on showing the world you’re serious.

As many of you know, I divorced my wife a month ago (November 15, 2010). I know me: someday I’ll get married again. And the experience has caused me to be a little more deliberate about some things, and this set of questions really hit home.

I want the person I’m with to be committed to me because that’s who I am: a committed person — no doubts, no halfway gestures, no hedging. I don’t play poker that often but I know that I’m reasonably good because I’m never afraid to go all-in.

In love, that’s always been me (and my bigger issue has been the equivalent of folding early (to continue the metaphor), of deciding that the future isn’t likely to develop the way I want and thus decide not to waste anyone’s time); in life, I’ve been happiest at work when I’ve been engaged, really engaged, in my work because it was important, interesting, challenging, and stretched me. I’ve been unhappiest when it’s been unimportant and when there’s no growth.

(As I post this, I think that I’m going to have to actually meet Scott Ginsberg sometime and see whether there’s any “there” there. Maybe he really is bright and insightful, or maybe he writes so much that something will make sense, or maybe it’s all bland enough that it will sound good to someone somewhere sometime.)