A Report Card for Life

There are times that I wish there was a report card on adulting so we could know if we are doing this thing called life alright or maybe even that we may find out we are crushing it.  There are so many things I would want to know like, how are my actions being received, are my intentions having a palpable impact,  and how am  I doing with my boundaries? Am I staying open the right amount that people know I still care but making sure I am not agreeing to things that make me uncomfortable or deplete my energy?  My good girl status-seeking as a kid that led to years of people-pleasing in adulthood, would leave me wondering if indeed I was reaching that next level of being a good human, whatever that looked like, and that most of my " humaning"  was fueled by good energy and not the ego-driven kind.  I would want to make sure my motives were showing up as pure. I think I  would need a rating system too for how  I am doing with caring for people and the planet. 

Thinking about this right now as I have been writing report cards and doing assessments for my kindergartners. Checking off boxes that ask you to choose from consistently, usually, and sometimes for things you can observe and track like interactions, initiative, independence, and responsibility.   The report is mostly anecdotal comments for this age other than evidence of early academic skills, which again are only reported as they can do it or almost can or not evidenced yet and may be experiencing some difficulty.   Regardless of how you feel about there being standards and expectations of growth, the report card is really there to let parents know what their child can do or can't do yet.  "Yet", being the operative word.  It is also a place to recognize a child's strengths and highlight their growth and unique ways of being.  It is a far cry from the checkmarks and percentages from my days as a student.  I always struggle, as do most teachers, with there only being space for so many words and it is impossible to highlight all of a child's growth and show the full potential of each student in a certain number of words. To be fair, there is an understanding or realization that even given unlimited space, we could not sum up or showcase any human being with our words, assessments, and observations.  I think of it like looking up at the full moon, as I did this week, and being so in awe at what I saw that I wanted to record it and then looking through the camera of my phone and seeing this tiny spec of light in an otherwise darkened lens.  You can never record or describe the full spectrum or essence of the moon in the way that you bear witness and it would seem true for humans as well. 

I am not writing about the effectiveness, value, or purpose of actual report cards here but I am using them to think about evaluating another human being.  I often wonder in real life if the concept of belief-creating reality would work for most people.  What if you told me I was crushing it even if I really wasn't and what if I maybe half-believed you or maybe I didn't believe you at all but was motivated enough to try to show up how you saw me.  Perhaps your faith in me was the only evaluation or critique I needed to keep taking that next step.   I do think it would matter who was doing my life report card and how invested I was in what they had to say.  We often turn to people that have passed like mothers, fathers, grandparents, and siblings when we are looking for guidance.  It makes me think that somehow we know that we can trust what they have to say because they no longer have a vested interest in any outcomes of our lives.  We see them as true guides and this may be why they are the very best choices for the ones to write our reports.    

What if we extended the report card writing for not just individual life reports but for all the systems we have in place.  If big corporations knew that the people they cared most about were going to write their evaluation. Their deceased moms, dads, siblings,  grandparents, and friends were going to weigh in on how they were contributing to the oppression of people and the planet.  What if they were going to call them out on putting the onus on others for what they could change in such a large way for everyone by rethinking their current strategies, policies and impactful practices and using their hearts not their heads to make good choices and decisions. 

The reality of anyone writing me or anyone else a report card on how they are doing life is nothing more than another of my contemplative ideas and I am mostly being playful with the idea, I know most of the time, that I am the only one capable of evaluating myself and my life dance or performance but I do think that whether it is me doing the evaluating or not, there would have to be some understanding of the time that the evaluating was being done.  Right now, if I looked at my independent skills,  I think I  would say that I am bordering on co-dependent.   I  have been so invested in the people I love that I have not been able to discern at times, how much I should be helping in these difficult times.   My interactions would get a rating of somewhere between sometimes and rarely if there was a box for that. It may just be me but I am thinking that my interactions were minimized with little contact for so long that it is difficult to reignite relationships. Communication is challenging and I am confused by a lot of it and my role in creating the confusion.  Showing initiative would get "usually," regardless of the fact that my motivation right now is seeing my way through to that part where I get to complete the day and land in my pajamas, preluded by sleepy time tea, the woodstove,  book reading or binge-watching, hot baths, being with my people and pets, yoga nidra and sleep.  It is funny how these things become the fantasies of my days as I limit media consumption and still work at staying in the moment.  My rating for responsibility would have to be consistent. This means that I am taking responsibility for my actions. sometimes other people's actions and probably taking myself too seriously at times.     The rest of the report I think should be the anecdotal notes of the people who really understand me, who are kind and thoughtful, those who are supportive of my unique ways of being, and who love me unconditionally.  I am thinking of the understanding friend who remembered recently to include Maya in her invitation to my husband and I to come for a visit because she knows that most of the time it is a challenge to do otherwise.  The kind friend who  I hadn't seen in a couple of years who made an effort to be complementary this past week because she knows the power of words. My sister who is always my biggest cheerleader regardless of my next idea or endeavor and then there is my daughter who sent me a text this morning after our roller coaster of a start, with accidental scalding water, a  flat tire, heightened emotions, and a little more rushing then we would have liked,  to tell me that I was one of the greatest humans she knew and whether you believe that belief becomes reality or not,  I have to say  I  spent the rest of the day trying to be the human she sees me as.