Devotion is a choice

It’s not sexy but it’s sustaining

Devotion is a choice. 

The phrase came to me when I was running two weeks ago and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. On this particular run, it was 6:30am and I was trotting up the big hill in our neighborhood park some twenty meters behind my husband, who is annoyingly much sportier than me. 

“Devotion is a choice,” I said over and over again like a mantra. Watching his back get further and further away, lambasting the fact that I didn’t have a coffee before heading out, and still putting one foot after another felt like an apt metaphor for the first five months of marriage. 

Devotion is a choice and I choose it. When we said our marriage vows, it was devotion we chose that day and every day after. 

The definition of devotion is “love, loyalty, or enthusiasm” and another definition calls it “worship or observance.” I love the idea of devotion as observance, which calls to mind one of my favorite quotes by Beverly Clark. She writes:

“We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”

I don’t think devotion applies just to romantic relationships, but also to friendships, family relationships, and dreams. While I have written a lot in the past about quitting, these days I’m more interested in what it takes to stay the course.

Devotion doesn’t feel particularly sexy these days. This might be in part due to the fact that it’s easier to quit things than ever. I read this article in The Atlantic about phone-based childhoods that explained that today’s internet communities make it easier to leave relationships than ever before—you can just exit the group, unfriend, or block someone. You don’t have to stay.

It’s not just in friendships, it’s across all domains. Religion is at its lowest. Divorce rates are high. There is a proliferation of choices, from romantic partners to careers. Being devoted to one thing requires clarity, conviction, and commitment. Things that don’t exactly scream FUN! 

In Abby Jiminez’s book, Just For The Summer, she wrote about how to live in devotion when she described love. She writes: “It's not grand gestures that show how you feel, it's all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch.”

When I read it, I was so moved by this example because I immediate thought of the people in my life who “take the end piece of bread” for me. Like scenes from a movie, I saw my mom giving me the best bite of her food, Gustavo giving me the restaurant seat with the nicest view, and my roommate letting me have the best room. So many times I’ve been on the receiving end of devotion. Of feeling prioritized, valued, and loved. It’s not just the grandiose vows and proclamations, but the sum of a million choices where you put what you care about at the center of your life.

When I think about the people in my life that I admire most, they are the ones who are the most devoted. My parents celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary last month. My friend Sean has written his newsletter every week for thirteen years. My friend wakes up and prays every day. I admire their consistency because I know what it takes to commit to something.

Devotion is built over years by choosing your priorities every single day. Being committed to something for that long requires deeply knowing yourself and what your heart longs for, not just chasing what someone else has. More than that, it requires faith. You have to believe that what you’re devoted to is meant for you and it will hold you.

I once thought that devotion meant weakness. Early in my career, I remember reading a post about what a shame it would be to have “devoted wife” or “devoted mother” as the inscription on your tombstone. It would be a horror, the post claimed, if your whole life could be summed up by being in relation to other people and not what you did on your own. 

To my twenty-year old, newly Girlbossing brain, the argument made sense. It was 2018, I had just graduated college and started a full-time job on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs. I honestly couldn’t imagine being devoted to anything other than my job. And to add to that, I definitely hadn’t dated anyone I would have wanted to devote my life to. Devotion to me then meant weakness. Dependence was to be avoided at all costs. 

Now looking back, I can’t believe how wrong I was. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen that my life’s wealth is in the richness of its relationships. If my parents could say I was a devoted daughter, if my future family could say I was a devoted mother, if my husband could say I was a devoted wife, I would be so proud of the life I led.

In her book, Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain wrote that “America had shifted from what the influential cultural historian Warren Susman called a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality… In the Culture of Character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable. What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private.”

I think what interests me so much about devotion is that it’s not flashy. It’s quiet consistency. It’s private. It’s not for anyone else. As the cycles of fads and fandoms move faster and faster, I have come to find solace in those people who are unmoved in their devotion. Who have dove deep below what’s popular and have tapped into their deep well of self-knowledge. Because you can’t be devoted to everything. You need to prioritize. You need to know who you are. 

A bit over a year ago, Gustavo and I moved to Scotland for his job. I loved Barcelona and I didn’t particularly want to leave, nor did I think the move would offer more career opportunities for me. The part of me that had been hard-wired to individually maximize my own opportunities, that left-over Girlboss brain of me, started to activate, wondering if I was being crazy for moving for love. But when Gustavo got the official job offer, I didn’t even flinch. Of course we were going. I knew that was the right decision and even though I didn’t want to go then, I wanted to be the person who would do the most loving thing. I wanted to be devoted.

Now looking back, it’s one of the decisions I’m most proud of in my life. That I chose to live in love. 

The decision to prioritize love has come back to me a million times over. Not only in the billions of ways Gustavo loves me and shows me he cares about me, but also in the incredible opportunities that living in Scotland has brought my way. I’ve come to see that when you live in alignment with your values, that’s when the miracles happen. 

When I’m living with love, I have so much energy. I feel pulled to the things that are for me, not pushed to do them. In a way, devotion is the best form of discipline. It’s running up the hill and not for a second questioning it because you know that’s where you want to go.

For me, devotion is choosing to do the most loving thing in the big moments and the small. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. Devotion is a choice and I choose it.