Commitment to a Cause – How is it Bad?

History and the media is full of people who are exemplified for being committed to a Cause. This is given rise to people who take on new projects, who join organizations or join clubs to become nearly fanatical when it comes to taking up a Cause and being committed to it.

However, it is not necessarily a good thing that someone is committed to a Cause. Especially when they are so eager to join and champion the cause before they have actually fully analyzed whether or not the cause is worthy to be committed to you in the first place.

It is not a good thing to become committed to a Cause or an Organisation beyond a reasonable level.

Why is being committed to a cause a good thing?

Everybody knows that commitment is a good thing when you want to achieve a certain goal. When you are working with an organization with an honorable goal then commitment becomes a very positive thing for you to invest your energy into.

The examples of people like Mother Teresa as a social and religious example or Muhammad Ali as a sports example will show us that if you are dedicated to a cause, that a lot can be achieved. This is a very positive example for us. It encourages us so that we may try and achieve our goals by being committed, rather than leaving our goals to be forgotten.

Often when you are trying to succeed in something you will then not set yourself a goal, but you will compare yourself to a role model. Someone who has succeeded in the task or field which you wish to succeed in.

Unfortunately, this sometimes causes people to gain a bit of an unrealistic expectation of themselves because they are not their Hero. If you are conscious of the fact that you might not ever become as good as the “Greats” and you're just using their example to improve yourself then you're probably on the right path.

This is not pessimistic. You are on the right path. Once you have gone along the path long enough and you are still successful, you can see when you are able to improve to a level that competes with the “Greats”. Otherwise, don't break yourself doing it.

Commitment to a Poor Cause

Because of the above examples where commitment to cause results in the achievement of some kind of goal, a lot of people have put it in their heads that they need to commit to something and that not committing to something means that you are not achieving anything.

So it comes as no surprise that there are people who commit themselves to Causes and organizations that are not necessarily beneficial.

Some people might even commit themselves to a Cause that will have a long-term negative effect or possibly have a negative effect against another group of people which is then cause for strife.

Before we look at negative projects to commit yourself to, then we can acknowledge the fact that you can have a andea to commit to which may run contrary to another groups ideas who are also committed to. Then because your commitment is too strong, this becomes yet another kind of barrier to communication and where negotiations become very difficult to do when you're not willing to compromise at all.

Sometimes people become committed to the Cause of a strong charismatic leader who initially has a very good reason for doing what they do. Whether it be a political movement, or a social work, or a revolt or a war that had a good motive to it. Then after success, the leader is lead to a position of power which can lead to corruption. The position that the leader now holds is used to gain wealth and resources. Now your cause is no longer as pure as it was to start with, but you have committed to it and we've been taught that you cannot un-commit.

There is a negative connotation to deserters - people who give up. People end up staying with a Cause which is no longer represents them. Because they do not want to be seen as a person who quits, they stay on even though the organisation's motives have soured.

I believe that this has put a lot of people into a situation where their commitment to a Cause no longer agrees with their principles and integrity but that they are unable to abandon it.

Commitment to a good Cause in a negative way

I have already discussed the point of two causes with contradictory values clashing.

You have a good cause that you committed to, someone else also has a good cause that they are committed to. Yet by doing what you do will clash directly with the things that they do and this causes strife. Fighting will occur where your opinion and their opinion will differ from each other. When people are very committed to a Cause they become bigots.

You shut down the arguments, opinions and values of others. You no longer see the value in good communication with other people because of your commitment. You are no longer willing to sacrifice or compromise any of your values in order to stay committed to your Cause alone.

The solution to this would be logical, if not simple. Because neither party would be willing to quit from their Cause and are both willing to remain committed then the two organisations should temporarily form a joint panel.

It is not always possible for two organisations to merge completely or in definitely. Often when there are two organisations that both have a good cause at least some of the goals of those organizations will coincide.

Yet they have different ways of reaching those goals. Their leaders have got different opinions on how to reach the common goal and there are people that are backing the leaders from both sides of the two different causes. Instead of compromising or letting go of our commitment to our initial Cause, if we merge the leadership into a conglomerate, for the time being, we will be able to discuss openly how the two different parties are going about achieving the same goal.

This then means that as soon as we have Cause we should also have a list of goals and priorities of goals which your Cause is trying to achieve. It should be a manifesto, something that is written down that every member that is committed to a Cause should know. This will help them identify themselves to others who might have other Causes.

People might be meeting in public while administering two different solutions to the same problem. Their first point when communicating with each other is stating that they're from a certain organization or that they have a certain Cause.

If you don't know what the other person's organization stands for there's very little chance for understanding, so there is very little chance communication. If you understand their cause then you should be able to come to a conclusion or a solution to your strife right there and then.

However, it is often the case that not even the person in public knows the goals of their own organization fully and this means that they cannot communicate to others what their goals are and therefore they cannot achieve good communication

So it becomes very important that we understand what the goals are of our Causes are. Perhaps our commitment is a personal one or perhaps the commitment is one that is shared by the colleagues of a workplace, a charity organization or a political party. Once we understand what the goals are of our Cause, we could even start analyzing whether or not we are in the right organization. We could have the right Cause, but does out Cause have the right goals in the first place?

As an example, I find that in South Africa there are many organizations that are backed by very large numbers of people and the leadership does not exactly steer the organization or political party in the direction that the members are conscious of. There is a lot of unhappiness because the people who are giving the backing are not receiving the benefit of the organization as they believe it to be.

But this whole conversation can wait for another topic.

Negative attributes to commitment in regards to Identity

I have discussed in previous articles the subject of Thought Identity. As a brief definition of that I mean the composite attributes to your personal identity this gives you an identity within a group of friends or within your family.

Overcommitment to a Cause can lead to a difference of personal identity and the identity that a Cause wishes you to assume because of the goals and manifesto of the Cause.

This means that if you're going to stay committed to a Cause that doesn't align with your personal identity that you will either hurt your personal identity or you will start to change everything that you are made up of in order to fit with the Cause.

Perhaps in the past, this is been a good thing for people to do, especially when they had a lack of a good role model. Joining a Cause that had a good motive could shape them into improved human beings.

However, I think that I've made it quite clear that sometimes an organization might not always have a good cause or might not have a good way of going about achieving a goal that is shared by more people and in this case it would not be a good thing for you to erode what makes up your personal identity for the sake of committing to a goal.

This is all leading up to another topic that I'd like to discuss in its own article but the gist is as follows: We need to be able to differentiate ourselves as individuals from groups because who we are cannot ever be represented fully by the Cause that we've committed to and for that reason it is not wise to over commit any single Cause.

I am not advocating that you become a quitter or that you become disloyal to your friends and groups of people that you share common goals with. What I am saying is that you should not get lost within the manifesto and goals of the Cause to the expense of your personal identity.

Conclusion

Having a commitment to a goal is a good thing if you wish to improve yourself. If your personal goals are matching the goals of the Cause that you committed to then there is a lot that you can achieve by working with other people.

It can be negative when it puts you into competition or strife with another group and you will need to learn how to deal with that as a person and as a group.

It can be negative when the commitment starts to erode your personal identity for you will no longer be able to contribute to the cause as an individual in the collective but rather you will become a pawn that was shaped by the commitment to the Cause.

It is good practice for us to be conscientious of this when we go about our lives committed to the causes that we believe in.

All Image credits to pexels.com

Part of my 60-day article challenge

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