How to Review Our Current Life Objectively So We Know What to Do Next

Not by society standards or our own inner criticism

As an existential crisis expert (i.e. one who experiences existential crises all the time), I know for a fact that it’s so easy to look at ourselves and feel like a failure, or question the meaning of life fundamentally.

Whilst some people worry that questioning the meaning of life and where we stand in this world is a sign of suicide, I strongly recommend asking ourselves these questions regularly. In this way, we can actually have a healthy and objective self-view and evaluation.

People who follow the herd blindly are forever auto-piloted sheep, people who ask these questions will find clarity and become a true, authentic individual.

However, it’s hard to answer these questions. That’s when some people get stuck (including myself in the past), and this is an article about how we can get out and answer big questions objectively.

Memories are not what they are for

The first thing we must realize is that memories are not accurate whatsoever. It’s subject to an extreme level of bias, and psychologists have done many experiments to prove that our brain can easily confuse us with false memories.

The actual use of memories is for our brain to remember cognitive information so that we don’t get hurt again. It’s a survival tactic. For example, we need to remember that fire burns to avoid putting our hands in the fire again and again.

When we look back at our childhood or even a recent relationship, we tend to remember either mostly good things or mostly bad things. Its because our subjective evaluation of this period of time has already led us to remember only the good things or bad things. In reality, we seldom have a fully bad or totally good experience, it’s always a little bit of a mix.

Phone calls give me anxiety. Because in today’s world, people normally only phone you when something really bad’s happening. So when I was working at a job where phone calls were the main mode of communication, I was f**ked. My heart skipped a bit every time my phone rang, and I was risking a heart attack at least 20 times a day.

But that’s not true at all, because I had many other phone calls that are pleasant, including romantic calls with love interests, etc. So my memory is mixed up.

Society is the slowest to respond to changes

After removing the subjective emotional response when we look back at our life, the next thing is to detach society's expectations from our own.

A society or a culture really is the collective consciousness of a group of individuals. However, the narrative of a society is usually biased too, mostly dominated by the loudest people. Extroversion is problematic because they are merely the loudest, not the truth, the most credible, or the most representative.

Susan Cain has written extensively about how extroverted people join together to accidentally dominate and manipulate narratives. They are not afraid to voice out their baseless judgments, so much so that shame and guilt have created, which in turn, cemented these baseless judgments as of the rules.

When self-evaluating, comparison to society standard does more harm than help. For a start, comparisons are relative, not objective whatsoever. When I grew up in Hong Kong, I was ranked first in one class and bottom in another. Would I rather be in the former class or the latter? Neither, I moved to England to avoid this kind of trash talk.

How to self-evaluate objectively

To avoid getting emotional and fall into the vortex of self-hatred and inner criticism, it’s important to know what you are evaluating.

The incredible book The 100-Year Life mentioned four assets we need to accuminate over our lifetime:

• Tangible assets: wealth (salary, properties, marriage, etc.)
• Vitality assets: health, mental health, friendships, and relationships
• Productive assets: knowledge and ability to learn, retain and apply
• Transformation assets: the ability to adapt to changes positively through self-knowledge

You might be happy to know that by reading this article, you’ve already processed great transformation assets. Many people don’t self-evaluate whatsoever and just walk around like a blind person.

The society focuses mostly on tangible assets mainly because it’s countable and easy to spot. It’s a tick-the-box exercise and allows extroverts to claim one must achieve a certain stage by a certain age. As I reach thirty and haven’t ticked the box of marriage and babies, society is shaking its head on me.

But there are more about my achievements than my tangible asset.

Honesty leads to transformation and true wealth

When we look at these four assets, we can see where we have put most of our time and how can we rebalance our portfolio a little.

For example, as I was going through an existential crisis, I was overworked, almost an alcoholic, and just broke up. It would seem like nothing is meaningful because all I have left are the pathetic labels of workaholic, alcoholic, single, and failure. That’s when I entered a phase of depression and self-hatred.

Then I came across this model of looking at assets, and immediately a much more sensible view materializes from the same fact pattern:

• Tangible assets: I’m rich because my job pays well and I’ve savings and investments that are doing well
• Productive assets: I’m knowledgeable about what I do, but haven’t done much top-up learning lately since the work has taken most of my time
• Transformation assets: I’m reading self-help books, seeing a therapist, and doing these exercises to gain self-knowledge. I’m open to changes
• Vitality assets: I haven’t spent enough time caring about my friends and family, but my networking skills are great and I have a good reach of people in my profession. Not exercising enough or drink enough water.

Can you see the difference? Once we are able to look at ourselves objectively and honestly, we start to see a much more balanced version of ourselves.

At a given point of time

It’s important to note the above should always represent this particular moment in time only. It doesn’t show your whole life and doesn’t provide any indication about your future, because change is the only constant.

In financial terms, it’s a bit like a balance sheet/statement of the financial position of a company. It only reflects our position as of the date we write this. It’s not an income statement/profit & loss, which reflects the whole lifetime. Do the latter when you’re about to die, we are a going concern!

On this basis, we must appreciate that we are doing this evaluation not to judge ourselves, but to look at how what adjustments we need to make to balance our assets acquisition/accumulation.

For me, this means it’s time to reach out to my friends, to write a letter to my mother, to allocate more time for exercise, to eat healthily, and to do an online course or something.

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