John Adair's 100 Greatest Ideas for Personal Success

Idea 8: Commitment

I don't know who – or what – put the question, I don't know when it was put, I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone or Something. And from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful And that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, has a goal.

In this passage from his personal journal Markings (1964), Dag Hammarskjöld – the great Secretary General of the United Nations – writes about his own commitment, when almost unaware he discovered that he had become what Wordsworth called ‘a dedicated spirit’.

The difference that commitment makes, both in personal as well as professional life, is well captured by W H Murray in his book Mount Everest Expedition (1951):

Until one is committed ...