“To get involved is to give something of yourself that has meaning.”

Co-founder of the Fondacio Training Institute in Europe (IFFEurope), François Prouteau is a Doctor of Educational Sciences. Passionate about human training, he supports young people in search of commitment. From alliance to contract, from fear to involvement, how to get involved? Interview.

What does “commitment” mean to you?

FP: First of all, it means getting involved in life and in one's life. Getting involved in life means getting involved in the world as it is today with its issues, its challenges, its opportunities, its crises.

It also means getting involved with others, wanting to answer with them the questions we ask ourselves about the meaning of the activities we carry out and, more broadly, the questions we ask ourselves about the meaning of life.
As for getting involved in his life, it means "giving oneself".

…that's to say ?

Give something of yourself that has meaning, mobilize something of yourself (your skills, your desires).
Getting involved in this way is positive, even if we can get involved in causes that are not always good: it is not necessarily because we get involved that we are doing something for the good.

​So, what are the conditions for a good commitment?

FP : You shouldn't be alone and say to yourself: "I'm the best, I'm going to save the world!" Otherwise, passion leads to a form of pride.

It is better to focus on the collective, the group and, what we could call, "being with". It is then a question of being very attentive to the people with whom we engage. We must ask ourselves the question: "Do we share the same vision of things?"

In any commitment, we must leave space for times of dialogue to be clear about the values that mobilize and the vision we have of things. Dialogue also allows us to know ourselves, to meet the other for free and therefore to know with whom we are committed.

So you seem to associate commitment and giving?

FP: Absolutely! I would even say that there is a notion of alliance in commitment. We also find this notion of alliance at the different stages that punctuate life: when we commit to someone to spend our life with them, when we commit to a relationship to welcome a child, when we commit professionally to an organization, a company or teams.

There is therefore in the commitment a relationship that takes the form of an alliance that is quite often formalized by a dimension of contract. Finally, the commitment is played out in the articulation of the contract and the alliance (and, conversely, of the alliance and the contract): this alliance/contract relationship is, in my eyes, at the heart of the notion of commitment.

"There are things that we know, but the flavor - the taste - of commitment is made precisely of something that is beyond, that we do not know. It is the salt of commitment."

Is there not, at the source of all commitment, a mystery?

FP: Yes, because I think that commitment always has something to do with relationship, creation and trust. With these three dimensions (relationship-creation-trust), we arrive at the spiritual register and at a deep perspective that is always in an invisible, in a desire and an expectation that is not known in advance.

This requires a form of disappropriation that is a mystery. There are things that we understand but others that we do not. When we engage with others, there are things that we know but the flavor – the taste – of the engagement is made precisely of something that is beyond, that we do not know, and which is the salt of the engagement.

How can we understand this mystery without being disconcerted?

In this component of the mystery, I would like to emphasize two things. First, the surprise: when one commits, there is a letting go – one abandons, one loses something of oneself – and then one discovers that the fruit of the commitment is also to discover oneself, to find oneself anew.

What would you say to someone who is in a black hole, who remains blocked from any commitment, whether professional, romantic or otherwise?

The first thing I would do is ask him: "Are you ready for something new for your life? Or do you prefer to remain in a form of installation or reproduction of what happens to you on a daily basis even if you seem dissatisfied with it?" Acceptance of change is therefore the first condition for becoming able to commit. It is then important to detect in oneself the little peaks of desire, motivation, and glimmers that emerge.

You should then talk about it with someone you trust (a friend, a relative, a parent or someone more external such as a guidance counselor, a psychologist). The dialogue with this person should be enlightening and allow you to perceive and explore the motives for this change.

We must then know how to let go so that something new can arise and lead to a decision that triggers the commitment to a new experience.

 

To commit oneself, one must therefore be of good will, that is to say, have an open will. Must one also be a man or a woman of desire?

Absolutely! This openness to oneself and to others is necessary so that the sparks of life, the sparks of the future, the sparks of hope or expectation can be triggered, awakened. These sparks can appear as much in professional life as in friendship, love, family, etc. But be careful, they can also appear in the associative, sporting, artistic sphere.

These spaces of engagement can be, in fact, the place of new creativity and innovation capable of feeding and nourishing what is not always invested in us. For example, in sport or in an artistic activity, we can awaken to life, to novelty, to involvement with others and therefore, to commitment.

Someone who is going around in circles must therefore pay close attention to the diversity of places in which commitment is possible. Where a strong commitment does not seem possible (professional or marital commitment) for a thousand reasons, and the situation seems blocked, well, by taking steps aside, we can find places of creativity and innovation elsewhere. Moreover, as a support or career coach, I often put these "steps aside" in the dialogue with those I receive.

 

​Finally, small commitments can prepare you for big ones…

 

Exactly! It is the virtue of small steps. The story of the hummingbird told by Pierre Rabhi is very telling in this respect. While the jungle is on fire, the hummingbird goes back and forth with water in its beak to put out the flames, the other animals ask it: "What are you doing?" and the hummingbird answers: "I am doing my part to put out the fire."

Doing one's part of the commitment means taking those small steps that we were just talking about: (small) initiatives that seem insignificant compared to the extent of the problems to be solved in the world, but which are the part to which everyone can contribute and which can stimulate others.

 

Is there a crisis of engagement in our time, in your opinion? If so, how can we analyze it?

If I believe the students of the major French schools (Polytechnique, HEC, ENS, Agro, etc.), I see some who are getting involved. Recently, for example, some of them got involved in the Student Manifesto for an Ecological Awakening to question together the big companies in their capacities to respond to the ecological and environmental crisis. They committed to giving up working for those of them who were not clear about their own environmental commitments.

So, in this situation, we have an example of students taking risks and making a strong commitment, whereas previous generations of students would perhaps never have made such choices.

All this to tell you that the components of engagement today must be measured in relation to our context. Today, certain areas mobilize more engagement than others.

 

Beyond the current challenge, what hope can we have?

There is no inevitability! There is freedom, opportunities and a future that is always open even if it is tenuous, even if it hangs by a thread. This thread is that of the relationship between people (the "living together") and the spiritual relationship (religion) which means that there will always be something to live, to do.

In this respect, commitment is always a possibility of openness, hope and the future."

Interview by Joseph Vallançon
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