Can Commitment Set Us Free?
On birds, tattoos, and the paradox of permanence
Dear friends,
For years, I played with the idea of a tattoo. Ruminating, wavering, retreating. Teetering on the edge, unable to leap.
You know this feeling, right? The endless rehearsal. The weighing of pros and cons. The “someday” that never quite arrives.
We tell ourselves we’re being careful, thoughtful, strategic. But rumination has a clever way of obscuring fear. Seduced by optionality, paralyzed by indecision, we end up lost in the limbo of perpetual maybe.
Paulo Coelho reminds us that when we commit, the universe conspires to help us.
But first, we have to stop conspiring against ourselves.
Last spring, two dear friends showed me their latest ink. “I’m so jealous,” one said, looking at my blank canvas. “You have so much prime real estate left!”
“Just commit,” the other urged. “I promise you’ll feel empowered—and you’ll wonder why you waited.”
Compelled by their confidence, I finally made an appointment. In the weeks leading up, I thought myself out of it countless times. But each time I almost cancelled, an irrational momentum nudged me forward.
When I walked into the studio, something shifted. My hesitation vanished, and I gave myself over to what was ready to emerge.
Afterward, my friend said, eyes shining: “You made less sense without a tattoo. This makes you more Abby!”
She was right.
The commitment didn’t feel constraining — it felt freeing.
“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating,” leadership maven Anne Morriss once shared on a coffee cup that’s shaped my life.
The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.
To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.
I can’t count the times commitment has set me free.
There are the small ones—pre-commitments like silent pacts with myself that end the internal debate before it begins:
Always take the stairs.
Phone down in elevators.
Say yes when my boys bid for my attention.
Hold every chair pose until time’s up, no matter how fiercely my legs shake.
And the bigger ones—bright lines I’ve drawn that, paradoxically, define my freedom:
Meditation.
Marriage.
Motherhood.
And now, The Flight School—building whole-heartedly, before the path is clear.
Each commitment creates a container. It removes my head as the barrier and builds the muscle of showing up even—and especially—when it would be easier not to.
When I’m all in, the universe is too.
My birds are layered with meaning:
Four daily remembrances: Life is precious. Everything changes. What we give is what we get. Freedom is letting go.
Three boys flying alongside me: they’re my compass, my teachers, my home.
Two evergreen instructions: Look up. Trust the bird, not the book.
One forever north star: Follow whatever leads to freedom.
They connect me to murmurations so much bigger than myself—moving in patterns I can’t always see, but know I can trust.
Soon after, the universe conspired again.
I stumbled on Josh Schrei’s podcast, The Emerald, and learned this: the birds freshly printed on my wrist have been imprinted in human consciousness….forever.
Birds are messengers between worlds….
They take our consciousness upward and teach our minds to soar.
The impulse to fly comes from birds—they nudge us to ask:
Is there something in us that also flies?
Yes.
And here’s what else they teach us: They don’t hedge.
When seasons shift, they commit to the journey. They navigate by stars we barely notice, ride magnetic waves we can’t see, traverse improbable distances on nothing but instinct and inner knowing.
Birds remind us that taking flight isn’t escape—it’s essential.
How else could we see farther, wider, faster, more vividly? How else could we chart a new course—for ourselves, for the world—without gaining perspective and learning to soar?
Two weeks in with my new tattoo, here’s what I hadn’t anticipated about this “permanent” marking:
It whispers its own truth: It’s all temporary.
Perhaps that’s the ultimate liberation—committing fully, then letting go.
So, I’m wondering…..
✨ What flight have you postponed to keep your options open?
✨ Where are you more loyal to your fear than your freedom?
✨ What commitments are you circling - to a person, a path, a practice - that might actually set you free?
✨ What would happen if you finally committed...and leaped?
All in for the long haul,
Abby
A few commitments inspiring my own:
Laurene Powell Jobs’ searing WSJ op-ed is a master class in moral courage. At a time when conformity is trending, she’s chosen conscience. Real generosity, she remind us, restores dignity and agency, funds movements not projects, backs people then steps back. And she walks the talk.
Maria Machado receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in a surprise, 5am call. I love how her whole humanity shows up before she’s even awake — no posing, polish or performing, just humility, conviction, and courage in service of something bigger than herself.
Lie Cheng’s TED talk on what she learned about freedom while imprisoned in China. Her opening line, a chilling reminder: “Freedom is wasted on the free.”
MacKenzie Scott’s luminous new essay. Beyond her radical generosity ($20B+ redistributed, and she’s just getting started….) she’s summoning a murmuration where each of us senses what’s needed and responds. What if care—not capital—is our most powerful lever? What if the outcomes we can’t measure make the impact infinite?
And so many more…. Courtney Martin Michelle Latvala Stephanie Harrison Parker J. Palmer Tara Brach Elena Brower Dan Harris Jack Kornfield David Whyte Suleika Jaouad Bill Coy 🙏
This piece is part of a new series, Are we asking the wrong questions? About how changing the questions, changes everything.
I love this! Thank you for sharing! I relate a bit to my this in deciding to start a substack newsletter-- I thought about it for a long time before writing my first piece. But sometimes we can't think our way out of a problem-- we need to take action, even small action, to be able to see a new perspective!
Love this - it helps me cast my Capricornian tendency to commit in a new freer light.