With the world full of distractions, commitment seems to be in short supply. Without commitment, we miss out on a lot of good things, benefits, and rewards that only come with strong real commitments.
The author made a distinction between the optimist and the patriot. The optimist loves a country because he/she thinks that it will be better. The patriot loves her country because she thinks it is worth of loving. The optimist will abandon the country in the hard-time, but the patriot tries harder in the face of it.
If we want the benefits and rewards, we have to commit. It's worth it.
What does commitment look like? I think it's when you stop considering options/alternatives, when it's "no other choice but this". To think about it, the saying "it's good to have options" is only half true when we are considering what to commit to, and it's the complete opposite of what we want when we have committed to something.
Let's increase our commitment tolerance. It's about mental focus and time duration. If we can commit to something now for 2 hours, let's see if we can do it for 2 days, then 2 weeks, then 2 years. The longer we can commit to something, the more rewards we will rip from it.