Theoretical Commitment

Commitment.  What a funny thing it is.  A very beautiful thing as well.  Some might even venture so far as to call it a pleasant thought, and for those who have chosen to take it on the words, "worth it" can often be heard bouncing off their lips.

Worth it.

Let us take a moment to dissect the implications of a statement such as, "worth it."

The dictionary defines worth as, "excellence, usefulness, or value", which must mean that those who take up commitment place some sort of value upon the endeavor(it will be assumed that the word, 'it' is indeed talking about the commitment in question).  It must also be noted that those who use the phrase, "worth it" attached to words such as commitment, have more often than not just finished recounting stories of hardship which challenged the commitment in question.

And so one begins to wonder if the value placed on said commitment has been there from the very start--how could it not if one has endured such hardship to hold onto something?--or if the value has been achieved via the commitment itself.  Which, if thought about long enough, may come across as a slight paradox to the reader.  Any sensible person will agree that it is near impossible for people or things to gain instant value, and that if they do, the said value gradually decreases over time. 

Commitment seems to take a turn of its own, however, in that if it is carried out, the person or object being committed to only gains value over time, and seemingly more so if hardships are endured along the way.  One may point to the thousands of divorcing couples across our planet, but one would have to recognize that divorce is a termination of commitment, and therefore not a valid argument.

At this point, one is struck with the question of how it is that the value needed to commit is gained through the very act of committing.  Perhaps the only way to obtain an answer is to test the theory.