A pattern learned in childhood, reinforced by culture, and now amplified by technology.
As children, we are trained to say yes too easily.
"Son, homework kiya?"
"Yes mummy," even if the page is blank.
"Promise there will be no more fights?"
"Yes papa," even if pride is louder than peace.
Saying yes becomes a reflex. Not a calculation.
Compliance is rewarded. Hesitation is punished.
So we learn early that promising is safer than thinking.
We learn that to say yes is to stay out of trouble.
That it is better to agree and not deliver than to say no and invite anger.
This training scales into adulthood.
In jobs, it looks like employees overcommitting to deadlines they cannot meet.
In education, it looks like students choosing degrees they have no desire to complete.
In business, it looks like young entrepreneurs announcing startups without preparing for boredom, loneliness, or years of invisible hard work.
And in love, it cuts even deeper.
Dating apps have become perfect laboratories for Commitment Dysfunction Syndrome.
People match. They flirt. They make grand promises.
"I have never felt this connection with anyone."
"Let's meet soon, let's build something real."
And then they disappear at the first sign of friction.
The same cycle. Fast excitement. Zero endurance.
Apps encourage volume over depth.
Swiping becomes easier than staying.
Ghosting becomes easier than repairing.
Connections become transactions.
The average user is not building relationships.
They are building an archive of beginnings.
The pattern is predictable.
Start fast. Quit faster. Blame the other side. Repeat.
In culture, Commitment Dysfunction Syndrome (CDS) shows up in other places too.
We celebrate beginnings.
The launch of a new project.
The announcement of a new fitness goal.
The promise to write a book.
The signing of a new lease.
We rarely celebrate the slow, invisible grind of finishing.
Building a profitable business.
Completing a novel after years of rejection.
Staying loyal to a hard relationship through ordinary, unremarkable days.
CDS is not caused by laziness. It is caused by addiction to beginnings.
Beginnings are clean. Middles are messy. Endings are rare.
And the cost is invisible but enormous.
Half-built bridges. Half-finished degrees.
Half-hearted careers. Half-lived lives.
In South Asia, this dysfunction is amplified by collective culture.
In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal - commitment is social currency.
The boy who promises to become an engineer.
The girl who promises to "settle down" at the right age.
The business family that promises to expand to Dubai and Singapore.
Everyone is promising.
Few are persevering.
Because the system teaches us that appearances matter more than process.
That a good speech is better than a slow grind.
That a glamorous launch party is more important than actual revenue.
That a destination wedding is more meaningful than the marriage that follows.
Even politically, the culture mirrors it.
Leaders announce grand missions.
Five trillion dollar economies. Smart cities. Digital revolutions.
But the roads remain broken.
The schools remain crumbling.
The execution dies quietly in the middle.
Globally too, the disease has spread.
In the West, hustle culture promotes beginnings endlessly.
"Launch your personal brand."
"Start your side hustle."
"Become a creator."
Every day, thousands launch new projects.
Most will die quietly because nobody is teaching the craft of staying.
Technology has made it worse.
Dating apps let people avoid hard conversations.
Social media lets people announce ambitions without building anything behind the curtain.
Workplaces celebrate multitasking over mastery.
Everyone is busy. Few are building depth.
The surface gets noisier. The core gets emptier.
The solution is brutally simple.
Do not commit unless you are prepared to suffer for the commitment.
Do not say yes unless you are willing to stay when the novelty dies.
Do not trust early excitement. Trust consistent action.
Because commitment is measured by the middle.
Not the start. Not the end. The boring, invisible middle where nobody claps and nobody cares.
It is easy to say you want to be fit in January.
It is brutal to show up to a cold gym in March.
It is easy to say you are building a startup.
It is brutal to stare at the same five customers in year two.
It is easy to say you love someone.
It is brutal to love them through their worst months, not just their brightest ones.
Every time we say yes without thinking, we rehearse future failure.
Every time we quit at the first discomfort, we weaken the ability to build anything real.
In a culture addicted to beginnings, real power belongs to those who can stay.
Not those who shout the loudest.
Not those who dream the biggest.
But those who suffer through the boring, painful, unglamorous middle without applause.
Those who finish what they start.
Commitment Dysfunction Syndrome is the real pandemic.
Not lack of talent. Not lack of ideas. Not lack of ambition.
It is lack of endurance.
It is a refusal to suffer meaningfully.
It is a glorification of excitement over effort.
And unless we teach our children, our students, our employees, and ourselves the art of staying -
we will keep living in a world filled with broken promises, abandoned dreams, and half-lived lives.
The future will not be built by those who start loudly.
It will be built by those who finish quietly.
Choose your side carefully.
Shashank introduces himself as a boy who risked to live.
