September 2021                                     

Dear Kaibigan,

I am a fan of checklists to keep me organized and motivated in carrying out tasks. I take pleasure in manually listing the activities I want to get done and even more gratification in crossing off an item with my pen when I’ve completed them. I give credit for this memory aid to my upbringing to be a responsible and hardworking person. My education was my first big career and I needed to have a tool to be successful in moving through the grade levels and graduation markers. I listed my homework assignments in a notebook. My Trapper Keeper held my lists and planner, and the sound of velcro separating as I opened up my binder vibrated excitement to my ears when it came time to review my list of assignments and their penciled due dates in my planner. I knew I would soon be able to go down my list of math worksheets, English papers, social studies readings, and science handouts and run a line across a finished task. School helped me to fine tune my checklist system over the years and I eventually applied it to many parts of my life. Chores? I made a checklist. Grocery shopping? Another checklist. Packing for a trip? Definitely a checklist. I also observed how others use checklists in their lives. Many for the same purposes as mine. Others for specific house and work projects. Some have life checklists. The kind that dictates what life milestones they need to have. These are usually tied to timelines in a person’s life.

Checklists and timelines. Checklists serve to ensure completeness in carrying out a task while timelines historically list important events in a person’s life beginning with the earliest event. I’ve had them and still do for various reasons. We follow lists that are handed to us...chore charts by parents or teachers, school course catalogue, and projects at work. These areas are defined for us by other people. What determines your checklists and timelines? Common influences on our life checklists and timelines are societal and cultural standards. A societal life checklist prescribes to spend time with family, go to school, get a job, get married, buy a house, have children, and spend time with your own family. These societal expectations and cultural traditions also imply specific age ranges that command due dates when these life milestones are to be completed.

It’s not unusual to hear those in their early twenties talk about getting married and having children soon. I hear from people who use phrases such as,

·       “I don’t want to be an old dad”.

·       “Now that I’m in my thirties”.

·       “I need to settle down”.

·       “It’s time”.

I read research articles while in graduate school that discovered most females in their studies reported that they chose to wed and have their own families when they were emotionally and psychologically ready whereas most males decided on marriage because of timing. They felt it was the “right” time. These people ended up marrying the person they were dating at that time. Not to say that they did not love nor was committed for life to that person. I understood from those articles that those males felt the timing was ideal for them and therefore were more willing to commit to a marriage. I deducted that had they been with the same person two years prior and had not felt it was the “right” time, those men likely would have not prioritized getting married and preferred to hold off. For women the timeline means the race begins. For men the timeline is when the race ends.

Filipinos tend to subscribe to the common checklist and timeline I just described. My relatives have asked me in not so elegant ways as I was nearing the end of college and again after graduate school when I was going to settle down. I was even told by an aunt “It’ll be too late for you if you wait longer to have children”; her concern referencing a woman’s biological clock and ability to bear children naturally. I could see the dismay and the confusion in some relatives as to why I was making a choice to wait on doing what my body was meant to biologically and culturally do…get pregnant and be a mother. I understood this to be included in a woman’s work in my family and culture. I related to the males in the studies I read about on the timing was not right for me. I had experiences and adventures I wanted to have without the responsibility of keeping another life alive. Life-long commitments like parenthood or to a partner made more sense to me to make out of authentic love and willingness. Not because of the number of candles I have in my year or because I’ve crossed off the previous milestone and I’m moving onto the next to-do to fulfill a cultural tradition.

Where are you at with traditional checklists and timelines? Different societal checklists pop up for nearly every age. You may be in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties age group and contemplating “settling” down soon through marriage and/or having your own children. Are you wanting to commit to that partner or job indefinitely because you truly love and find them meaningful? Or are you thinking you should commit because that is the thing to do at your age, it’s the “right” thing to do, or it just happens to be the person or job you currently have so why not? You may be beyond this age group and are in the phase of life where you are a parent and are getting your children to start launching off on their own or are feeling like you are finally getting the hang of life. What’s next for you? What more do you want? Whatever your age or phase, I encourage you to think about your checklist and timeline and your motivation for each component.

Societal checklists that we inherit can disillusion us to think we only have that one kind of checklist to work off of. Question the reasons for the items on your checklist and the deadlines on your timeline. Are the items reflective of what you truly want and find important or are you settling for less than what you want? Are you obediently following a prescribed societal checklist? Does your checklist and timeline include meaningful experiences and offer a sense of purpose in your life? These questions touch on our spirituality and, therefore, our spiritual wellness. We ask a version of these questions each time we reach and surpass life milestones. I encourage you to pause to reflect on the crossed off to-dos and what remains on your life checklist. As for that timeline…well, it’s yours to manage. You can follow what has been passed on or imposed on you. You can also incorporate societal and cultural expectations and traditions that blends in with your personal ones. My inner circle and clients know that I appreciate thinking in the gray areas and on spectrums. Sometimes you may, like I do, revisit a completed task and decide that you want to work on it again or experience more of it. I went back to school once I figured out a program I wanted. I ended relationships and went back to dating and making new friends whenever I felt ready. I changed jobs when I needed or wanted to. I moved from place to place as leases or timing called for. I had timelines for some of these experiences while others naturally had their endings. Creating meaning and purpose in our lives can be thought of not just in timelines or hard deadlines and societal checklists. You have a personal checklist, perhaps unrealized or embedded within a societal one. Some of your checklist items may warrant a timeline while others are ongoing experiences.

Our pasalubong for this month, sans a Trapper Keeper, is a (check)list of questions to intentionally pause and parse out your personal checklist:

• What life milestones have I accomplished and checked off?

• Which of these milestones were of my choosing? How did I make those decisions?

• Who dictated the ones I did not choose? How so?

• What life milestones do I want to work towards and is there a timeline for each one?

• What standards am I trying to meet through these milestones and timeline?

• Which milestones do I feel did not add value to my life? Who do I hold responsible for making me have such milestones? Why?

• For the milestones that did not add value to my life, what was my part in working towards those milestones? Why?

• What and who adds meaning to my life?

Considering the purpose of your checklists and timelines can broaden your perspective that accomplishing life’s milestones and tasks are not confined to a specific age or after the crossing off of your checklist items. Knowing that they exist, who gave them to us, why we created our own, and reviewing and fine tuning them is something we can do throughout our lives to spark our spiritual wellness.

Mabuhay!,

Angel, on behalf of The Giving Well