It's the age-old story of love and hate and checklists.

I used to live and die by the agendas they provided us in grade school. Perhaps you remember those I mean. The size of a notebook, coil-bound, covers holographic for some reason. A box for each day of the school week, split into boxes for each subject in which I wrote down the numbers of math problems, the chapters of books, the permission slips I needed signed. About halfway through the school year, I memorized the assignments instead of writing them down because I’m a masochist by nature, clearly.

Agendas were not a bad idea, especially for a preteen trying to juggle the demands of 8 different courses. Checkmarks meant a breath of relief, one less piece of chaotic information cluttering an already chaotic mind. So I bought my own planners in college, then continued to do so in the supposedly competent adulthood that followed. Still not a bad idea. Trying to remember due dates on too many bills and plans with friends. All good, all smart, all helpful.

Until they’re not.

Today, I build bullet journals. And yearly goal lists, complete with blocks to color in. Great for building habits. Someday, I might write my strategies for why these sorts of things tend to work for me, provide helpful tips on how to build your own. But this blog is not intended to be an instructional manual. Maybe someday. Today, however, I want to tell you when this doesn’t work. For me. Maybe for you too.

I want you to know you’re not alone if checklists feel like a black hole sucking your soul out through your throat, burning in the surface of your skin, altogether a creature that makes you a failure rather than a human.

All a bit brutal, I understand. But so are some of the thoughts occupying the inside of my head.

Perhaps I should show rather than tell, as the age-old writing advice goes. Anecdotes rather than obscure words that fail to paint a picture.

At the beginning of the year 2021, we were still in the midst of a pandemic. The whole world is tired, and lonely, and drowning. Surviving, maybe, if we’re lucky. So naturally, I created a 7 item goal list.

And yes, this was the kind version of me to myself.

The list included savings goals, goals to workout more and drink water everyday. Good, healthy things. Read 72 books. Okay, perhaps not fully normal things. But there is one I didn’t make. Won’t make: write 5 novel drafts. One goal out of seven that I did not achieve.

If I think about that too long, my lungs constrict.

Before you say anything, I realize this is not a normal reaction. I can’t say that I know what the “normal” reaction would be either. Perhaps not setting such an absurd goal, though I have written as many as 8 novel drafts in a single year before. 5 drafts of one book, 2 of another, 1 of a third. Then in 2021, I wrote:

• 1 full novel draft

• 25K of a second novel draft (unfinished and likely abandoned)

• 51K of a third novel draft (in progress)

• An outline for a fourth novel draft (novel itself not started)

• A bunch of poetry

• This blog
  

And that voice, that single checklist item screams FAILURE. Sinks into my very bones, a cold poison flooding into my veins and rushing for my heart. Because there is a single checklist item that did not get checked.

I have a love/hate relationship with checklists. I maintain a bullet journal. I use colorful pens to fill in every goal I achieve. I even maintain a checklist for the books I want to read, shows and movies I want to stream, my recreation included alongside my assignments. The rush of serotonin from checking an item off a to-do list is unmatched. And I cannot deny how much I get done when that rush of serotonin is on the line. I’ve read 101/72 books this year, worked out twice as much as my goal arranged.

Then there is this single failure.

I think my brain is still fixated on my preteen understanding of the agendas they handed us on the first day of school in which we wrote down our homework assignments. A failure is a grade falling, a teacher’s disappointment, and shame, always shame bigger than even myself. I once forgot a homework assignment in my locker and I still carry that shame inside me, all the way back from sixth grade through to now.

Yes, we can certainly talk about my unhealthy coping mechanisms later. But therapy’s expensive so we’re going to work on writing right now instead.

Which brings me back to the to-do list. What’s the solution when you are filled with shame because you missed out on a goal you set for yourself almost 365 days ago? Spoiler alert: I don’t have a big solution for you. In case it’s not clear, I’m still struggling through this, or else I wouldn’t be writing about the topic in the first place. No matter what, this shame will still live inside me. I will think I should have worked harder, planned my time better, prioritized my time and my goal.

But you know what? I am not Cassandra; I am no creature of prophecy. I do not know what a single year will bring or what burdens I may have to bear. Sometimes, that uncertainty comes down to a single day or an hour. I start a phone call talking about lunch plans and end it by learning my grandmother is in the hospital. Life cannot be planned for.

So what do you do in a society that trains you to feel shame for a failure of planning? You reject the shame. You listen to your body and trust that you know what you need. Yes, you might want to complete a goal but have you seen the year 2021? I am tired.

I am so tired.

Sometimes, I need to open another book and escape. Sometimes, I need to sleep longer than usual. Sometimes, I need to race to another boxing session to throttle an inanimate object with my rage and my grief over all this lost time and lost control. And I need to let go of a goal a past version of me created.

I am not a failure for changing my priorities on the fly. I am an adaptable creature. So forgive yourself for those things that need not be forgiven. You are not a failure for listening to yourself and changing your plans. As humans, we have created so many machines by which we now live. But remember there are soaring mountains and fresh breaths of air. And you are so much more than whatever plans you have made.