Dedication or Compulsion?

People say, how can you keep up with the writing of an everyday Blog and a bi-monthly E-Newsletter?

All you have to do is be aware to what appears to be the most insignificant of situations.

While I’m riding down the elevator of my building at 6:30am to take a 5 minute walk to Starbucks for my chai tea latte, the elevator stops on one of the floors and a man gets in the elevator dressed in his work out gear and he is going to the gym on the 2nd floor.

I say to him. Dedication.

He says. Compulsion. Either I am or I am not or I get distracted.

I thought to myself. What’s the difference?

Here are some definitions.

Dedication:
– complete and wholehearted fidelity
– a ceremony in which something (as a building) is dedicated to some goal or purpose
– commitment: a message that makes a pledge
– a short message (as in a book or musical work or on a photograph) dedicating it to someone or something
– commitment: the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action; “his long commitment to public service”; “they felt no loyalty to a losing team”

Compulsion:
– an urge to do or say something that might be better left undone or unsaid
– an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions against your will
– using force to cause something; “though pressed into rugby under compulsion I began to enjoy the game”; “they didn’t have to use coercion”

I believe it was Dedication.

The man going for a workout does not relate to the above definition; an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions against your will.

Yet, sometimes we can use Compulsion to our advantage. Take a look at the above definition; using force to cause something; “though pressed into rugby under compulsion I began to enjoy the game”; “they didn’t have to use coercion”