You Don't Choose This LifeFootball, Loyalty, and the Rituals of CommitmentWhy do supporters keep turning up when enjoyment is no longer guaranteed?In It's In the Blood, Thomas Calder explored why football loyalty takes root - how identity forms quietly, early, and often without conscious choice. You Don't Choose This Life begins where that journey becomes visible: in behaviour. In repetition. In the actions supporters carry out long after belief has hardened into routine.This book examines what loyalty does. It looks at the time given without accounting, the money absorbed into habit, the journeys repeated without question, and the discipline of staying when optimism has faded. From showing up when nothing is promised, to supporting without witness or reward, Calder traces how loyalty becomes lived practice rather than emotional attachment. Football, here, is not passion or spectacle - it is structure. Something supporters organise their lives around without ever formally deciding to do so.Written in the same calm, reflective tone as Book One, You Don't Choose This Life reveals how loyalty becomes embedded through ritual, endurance, and quiet sacrifice. It shows how repeated action reshapes identity, teaching patience, obligation, and continuity - not just in football, but beyond it. This is Book Two of a three-part series, bridging identity and meaning by examining commitment as something practiced rather than proclaimed.The series concludes with How Rivalry Defines Us, where the focus shifts outward - from behaviour to boundaries, from loyalty lived to loyalty defended. Together, the three books form a complete psychological exploration of why football matters, why supporters stay, and why walking away is rarely as simple as it sounds.