Self-evaluation

 I feel that it is incredibly useful to evaluate myself consistently. Dr. Peterson teaches to “Become a better person than you were yesterday.” Thus, I feel that the very idea of self-evaluation is a starting point for the development of new goals for myself.

It also becomes the source of my motivation, my drive to achieve the goals I set, the root of my happiness when I achieve a goal, and the source of my guilt when I make a mistake that is counterproductive to the achievement of my goals.

I believe that at its core, self-evaluation boils down to little more than assessing the quality of the decisions we made, and suggesting alternatives to the ones we made. I think that one flaw in the process is that we are blind to our weaknesses that we do not perceive until they are pointed out to us by others, or we discover them within ourselves by chance or from another individual.

I’ll give a very recent example of this idea being demonstrated in my life, just this morning in fact. Now, before explaining how I began to ponder upon this potential weakness, I should also describe the state of my mind prior to the event that struck this thought within me. I had realized that there were aspects of myself that I was proud of such as my discipline in sticking to my schedule and daily tasks, my consistent dedication to activities such as self-reflection, mindfulness, exercise, practicing the piano, and playing chess (all of which are measurable, some to a high degree--such as chess rating). I also was aware of a few weaknesses/vices I exhibited, such as not limiting the amount of bullet chess I played, not articulating myself well enough in family conversations, underestimating the effort I need to put in for a particular project, or studying for a particular test.

Then, it seems natural, that when I was called out this morning by my dad for being a bully, it occurred to me that I had not evaluated myself on the health of my social relationships, at least not for a while. The incident that provoked my dad’s remark was the fact that I, rather unconsiderately, knocked on the bathroom door, while my brother was inside, as I wanted to enter to take a shower. Now, that--that wasn’t a very virtuous thing for me to do. But, I suspect that, had my dad not pointed this action out, I would have soon forgotten about it and moved on with my day.

I begin my evaluation by asking myself--why was that action bad? After thinking a moment, I feel that it was a mistake simply because it was a rather uncourteous gesture, and one that involved me taking advantage of the conviction I held that compelling my brother to leave would not be met any, small or large, retribution or punishment from my brother. Furthermore, seeing as my mental state was not shrouded by any sharp feelings of irritation, anger, or any emotion of the sort, the act of rudeness was rather unjustifiable. I should have politely waited, or called out to my brother, rather than rapping on the door, not because anyone was watching, but because the connotation of such an action would have made me a more virtuous person, and on my deathbed, I would have one less sin for which I would have to suffer the consequences.

Thus, this process of logical reasoning seems to have enabled me to calculate the impact of my actions, assess their quality, virtuosity, and determine, most importantly, if I were in the same position again, would I repeat the same action again? If not, why would I not do so, and what dilemmas or temptations would I have to overcome in order to reach the decision?

I’d like to close off this section by briefly discussing how I have lately tried to make self-evaluation, goal-setting, and goal follow-through a part of my daily life. My journal has become a rather large part of my life now, as I use it to document my work throughout the day and close off the day. The process I take of writing down my day’s lowlights (regrets or situations out of my control), my day’s highlights (joyful moments or virtuistic actions I’m proud of), and my goals for the next day, tailored to reflect my aspiration to learn grow from my mistakes. In fact, now that I am done with this section, that is what I am going to do now! :)