Lately I’ve been thinking about checklists. I don’t write down my “to do’s” for the day, unless it’s a grocery list. But I do create mental checklists all the time. Sometimes when I trek up the 25 stairs that make up my staircase to grab a few items, I say them over and over in my head, so as to not forget anything.

“Makeup brush, navy clogs, diapers.”

Checklists are good because they help us to manage our increasingly chaotic lives. But when are checklists detrimental? When I was single and dating, I’ll admit I had a checklist in my journal as to the type of guy I wanted. I’m sure “good looks” was on there, as well as many other less-important or shallow traits. Exposing those would only add to the very clear fact that I was an ignoramus in my 20’s and really had no clue what traits are really crucial in a person you’ll be spending the rest of your life with.

I think checklists can be damaging when they apply to a person’s life path. In my culture, people are expected to check off several items on a commonly-shared checklist, that in many ways determines the value of that person. Did that person go away for a few years to serve other humans, did they go to a specific college, were they married in a certain place by a certain age?

And then at that juncture, once they’ve checked all these boxes, there’s a whole new set of boxes. But this time, it’s for their children. Did their children check off these boxes? Because if they didn’t, then it doesn’t really matter the boxes that you, as their parent, had previously checked off. Because now, you have failed to check off the most important boxes- those that determined how you raised your children. So now you’re really screwed. Because you can control your adult children like you can control the weather. And why should you even want to control them? Why would you want to rob them of the learning, growth, and absolute wonder that comes with determining and living their own unique lives?

So I am thinking about rejecting these checklists in my culture. Because my kids are too valuable and wonderful and brilliant to have to be confined by them. They must know, no matter what they decide, those decisions are right where they are meant to be. And they will learn from them. No matter what they are. And I refuse to rob them of this priceless gift- the gift of determining their own lives and becoming who they want to become, not what someone tells them they must become in order to be valuable.

And while we’re on this subject, I deserve the right to choose my life. I am also precious, as is my life. I only have one and I’ve determined to be the master of my own ship. And I just threw those damned checklists off of it.