Power Tool: Being Attached vs. Being Committed

After thinking for a while. She makes up her mind to get him HOT CHOCOLATE FUDGE.  Karthik is very happy eating it and they go home after the shopping. By doing this she knows that she is answering to karthik’s want.

She does this because when she buys him the ice cream he will not cry and he will also be feeling good about her. For her, the most important thing is she feeling good vs taking care of him at that moment.

Scenario of being committed:

Karthik and banu are busy chatting about how his last week was and he is also making a request to banu to stay in his friend’s house over the forthcoming weekend. In response to karthik’s request banu said a BIG No because Karthik’s grandma is coming from Tamilnadu to spend time with him. Karthik is not able to take it and he starts crying because he could not go to his friend’s place.

After an hour of strenuous shopping and listening to karthik’s crying she is pist off and feeling bad for him.

Suddenly, Karthik sees his favorite ice cream shop- Corner house and he is asking his mom to buy him HOT CHOCOLATE FUDGE. Banu is thinking whether to get him or not. He has been crying for a while and I told him not to go to his friend’s place. If I tell him NO, he is going to really feel bad. Also, if I buy him, he will catch a cold

After thinking for a while, she makes up her mind not to buy him HOT CHOCOLATE FUDGE. Karthik was crying again for sometime but after a while he understands  the intent behind his mum’s decision. Here banu answers karthik’s need of taking care of himself.

She does this because she is clear about taking care of his health.  When she buys the ice cream for him, He will catch fever which is not good for him. She was also thinking that when she doesn’t buy him the ice-cream he might not like her for sometime but she was fine with it. In this way she is answering karthik’s need of taking caring of him.

Being attached means answering the want.

Being committed means answering the need.

Reflective questions to clarify being attached vs. being committed.

• When you are feeling thirsty, do you look for coke or water?
• When you are upset with your boss in the way he is working with you, do you look to shift your way of working with him and share feedback with him or be nice to him externally?
• When you have set alarm to go for a jog in the morning and it rings, do you switch it off and go to sleep or get up to go for jogging?
• When your friend does not handle their personal finances well and they keep on asking you for money once a month, do you give him the money or enable him to get his finances right?
• When you are given a negative feedback about your work ethics from your colleagues, do you tell them that you respect the feedback and you are struggling to take it or you are being nice with them for what they have said.

Self Application:

Most of the times we get into the cross roads of whether we need to think about the false image that we want to create with others or should we stand firm to take care of the people who matter in our life.Let’s see the below case study to identify attachment and commitment.

Sam is an entrepreneur who is inspired about being the number one in his sector. He runs his education company which focuses on building empathy as a quality for children through simulation games.

He is also married to sharanya who is an entrepreneur herself. They both have a kid by name lovely.

They both lead a very comfortable and happy life. At one point during their journey together, Sam gets into the mode of working very late in the night and spends even his weekends in the office to manage his business.  Sam was feeling bad for not spending time with his family and he also wants to make this particular project a success.

Sharanya was allowing Sam to do this for over 2 months but she also felt that there is something wrong in the way she is relating to this particular change in her family.

So she spent some time thinking about the changes that had happened in the family and started journaling this. When she started writing she felt uncomfortable because she could notice most of the times she didn’t have any conversation with Sam on him spending late nights in the office because that conversation might turn out to be interference to his progress.

But she felt strongly that if he is over working, then he is missing some of the basic things in his business. It was not logical thought but more of an intuition. She started the conversation with Sam on this particular thing. It was not successful for the first 4 conversations and Sam was resisting having these conversations with sharanya. After that they started discussing and they found how he was feeling uncomfortable sharing with sharanya on him working late hours and not contributing time for his family. Then he told himself that he will work very well for 8 hours a day in his business and he will spend over 2 hours working on himself and his business.

When we look at this study, we find that both of them were very uncomfortable in terms of the change that was happening in their life. Sharanya was attached & bothered  about Sam’s response which stopped her from having a conversation with Sam, but she didn’t mind stopping all those considerations and having a conversation inorder to take care of him. Initially it was tough for her but she persisted with it and through her conversations, enabled him to be efficient in the time that was available. This is actually answering Sam’s need.

Reflection:

The test of being attached in a relationship is that both of them being uncomfortable about the challenges but they don’t speak to resolve it.

The test of being committed in a relationship is both of them being comfortable about handling the challenges in the relationship but the conversations are uncomfortable.