"Confining his relationship with [[Felice Bauer|Bauer]] to the realm of letters meant that he could cling to the possibility of a life of intimacy with her without allowing it to compete with his mania for work, as a real-life relationship necessarily would. This effort to dodge the implications of finitude doesn’t always manifest itself in commitment-phobia like [[Franz Kafka|Kafka]]’s: some people do commit outwardly to a relationship but hold back from full emotional commitment on the inside. **Others find themselves years into threadbare marriages they actually should leave but don’t, because they want to keep open the possibility that their relationship might yet blossom into a long and contented one, and also the option of exercising their freedom to leave at some future date**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[perfectionism]], [[optionality-trap]], [[procrastination]], [[discipline]], [[relationships]], [[acceptance]], **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]] **See Also** -- [[202410120924 - AtN - Embrace annoying problems as a signal you are progressing towards success]]