The Four Commitments: The Choices That Create Your Life
Setup
A successful life usually depends on making four major commitments: to a spouse or family, a faith or philosophy, a community, and a vocation. But how do we choose what we will commit to, and how do we execute those commitments? In later years, is it possible to launch a new booster stage with new or additional commitments? (Yes.) This will be another exploration of a life well lived.
Speakers
- 2016 Festival
The case for commitment in an era of evasiveness
The 21st century zeitgeist, according to New York Times columnist David Brooks, is not one that rewards commitments. Reasons for evasiveness may be manifold, but Brooks thinks the end result is the same: individuals and societies that are fragmented and listless. Without long-lasting commitments that weave through the fabric of your life, there’s nothing tying it all together. Whether shying away from big life decisions or ghosting a date, we are not inclined to commit to ourselves or others.
A definition for the times
2. How to make the leap of blind faith that commitments demand of you
Many of the big commitments we make in life, no matter how much planning or soul-searching goes into them, are still acts of blind faith. In the absence of cold logic to guide our decisions, David Brooks advocates for love and morality to be the foundation of our commitments:
-
David Brooks: The first thing love does is humbles us, it reminds us we're not even in control of ourselves. You can't control your own thinking when you're in love, when you look across the crowd you think you see your beloved sitting there. The second thing love does is it plows open hard ground. It opens up the crust of our lives that we've used to cover of ourselves, exposing soft flesh below. And it makes us more liable to suffer deep pain, but also deep joy. The third thing love does is it decenters the self. You realize your riches are not in yourself, they are in another person. And the final thing it does is it leads to a sort of fusion unity between two people.
A strong inner morality allows us to set aside what may seem like the logical choice and put a higher calling at the center of our decision-making. Morality decouples ourselves from our decisions, in a way, and can be a constant throughout decades of change.
What disciplines our commitments?
If love and morality compel our commitments, what maintains them over years and decades? What strengthens our commitments when love and morality butt heads with everything outside the mind? David Brooks has some suggestions:
Explore More
Arts
October is National Book Month, and we’re celebrating by looking back at some of our favorite conversations about reading and writing from the Aspen Ideas Festival and Aspen I...
Jump in by watching our 15 most popular talks of all time. From black holes to jazz and civil rights to psychology hacks, we've collected the talks that remain audience favori...
The arts are not just forms of expression, but powerful forces that shape culture and the human experience, both reflecting and influencing our world. Join renowned artists, w...
As one of the foremost reporters of his generation, Nicholas Kristof has been witness to century-defining events and atrocities around the world. How has he managed to weaponi...
Amid seismic shifts in the entertainment world, Oscar-, Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning Brian Grazer has managed to keep pivoting to new ways to tell stories in movies, TV and...
In the last 30 years, conglomerates from Amazon to Netflix to Spotify have changed the way we interact with media, books, fashion and music. Creatives are struggling to mainta...
Hurray for the Riff Raff is more than Alynda Segarra’s musical moniker; they spent their youth hopping trains across America, capturing that life in youthful poetry then and a...
Images communicate truths, and also lies. Learning to pay attention to photographs can help us discern. An art and cultural historian and a visual artist host a master class o...
When people in prison are given creative outlets, the impact is life-changing. Hear from a hip-hop artist setting up prison recording studios, an architect designing more huma...
Whether as Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld” or Selina Meyer from “Veep,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus delivers laughter. But in the upcoming film “Tuesday,” she communicates with death — i...
You may not know what typeface this sentence is written in, but typography is crucial to how we convey, process and retain information. How has the form evolved? Hear from des...
Maybe all of us feel like we’ve been raised by Hollywood, but being raised in Hollywood is a different kind of drama. Actor, producer and director Griffin Dunne joins friend (...
Here’s a radical proposal: Make access to the arts free for everyone. Leaders on a mission to bring Americans into art spaces discuss the transformative power of the arts, and...
Rosalind, Viola, Portia and Beatrice are unforgettable roles in Shakespeare’s plays. But there were real women behind these characters — women who spoke out against patriarchy...
Architecture doesn’t just build edifices; it shapes societies. Even as transportation infrastructure creates and locks in racial inequality, there is hope that intentional des...
Join NBC's Jenna Bush Hager as she discusses her Read With Jenna July book club selection with its New York Times bestselling author. Explore the epic love story and thriller,...
Shakespeare's plays, rich with political intrigue, power struggles and ethical dilemmas, provide profound commentary on the nature of governance and leadership — and draw unse...
What if the threat to American democracy came from within our own military? “War Game,” a 2024 Sundance Official Selection documentary, imagined just such a scenario and conve...
In the dynamic evolution of opera, women are playing pivotal roles not only as performers but as composers and opera house leaders. These remarkable women are breaking barrier...
