I did a ritual with them once. She observed that I was not putting the work into running an event because I had not mentally committed to running it, that I was half convinced I would drop out. So she sat me down and said “now’s the time to decide, are you doing this or not?” and presented me with… a red and a blue Smartie. I took the red Smartie.
...and ended up dropping out anyway a couple of months later, leaving her running things to her dismay, but coming back and playing a big role in running it later still in any case. So, a very memorable ritual, but not a great success.
Commitment rituals aren’t very useful for telling whether you’re actually committed. The real test is whether, for all the worst-case scenarios you imagine possible, you feel you can accept and handle that as the outcome.
That is, even if the worst happens, you believe you can feel like you made the right decision. (Not, “well, that shouldn’t/probably won’t happen”, but “if it DID happen, could I deal with it?”)
And that’s not something that “taking the red pill” is going to make happen, since it most likely induced you to suppress your doubts, rather than face them.
I did a ritual with them once. She observed that I was not putting the work into running an event because I had not mentally committed to running it, that I was half convinced I would drop out. So she sat me down and said “now’s the time to decide, are you doing this or not?” and presented me with… a red and a blue Smartie. I took the red Smartie.
...and ended up dropping out anyway a couple of months later, leaving her running things to her dismay, but coming back and playing a big role in running it later still in any case. So, a very memorable ritual, but not a great success.
Commitment rituals aren’t very useful for telling whether you’re actually committed. The real test is whether, for all the worst-case scenarios you imagine possible, you feel you can accept and handle that as the outcome.
That is, even if the worst happens, you believe you can feel like you made the right decision. (Not, “well, that shouldn’t/probably won’t happen”, but “if it DID happen, could I deal with it?”)
And that’s not something that “taking the red pill” is going to make happen, since it most likely induced you to suppress your doubts, rather than face them.