Obligation = Connection

The other day I was grinding through some family obligations, feeling resentful because I had a whole list of other things (mostly entertainment related) that I wasn’t getting to. This was my hard-earned vacation, dammit, and here I was driving back to the doctor’s office to retrieve a scarf, followed by walking a reluctant dog in the rain.

But then I remembered something I had learned but almost forgotten. Obligation is connection, as are most types of responsibility. We do things for other people because we love them and care about them. If we were totally free of obligations, we’d also be totally free of relationships. Alone and lonely.

My kid was very happy to see her scarf. My dog was happy to be inside, out of the rain, having peed.

Life is an endless grind of dishes, laundry, things breaking and getting lost, procuring and preparing food, paperwork, resource management, and complicated planning. But all that is true even if you’re alone. If we’re doing these things for and with other people (and sometimes having them done for us, the joy!) then we’re operating in a privileged space. One that we can choose to be grateful for.

Boundaries are another topic, not for this post. I don’t have any problem with setting boundaries and letting people deal with their own shit. The challenge for me, which I succeeded in that day (and will hopefully remember going forward), is remembering that obligations are the opposite of loneliness.