Howdy,
Self-assessment is so hard.
I mean when you have to reflect on questions and write something up, really think about it and come up with something that rings honest and true and fair, to the best of your ability.
Self-assessment is so hard.
It’s hard not to go too hard on yourself. That’s the temptation, at least for me, to be self-deprecating to the point of the tone taking a negative slant. Then it seems not quite to capture whatever good goes along with whatever it is or what’s been achieved.
Self-assessment is so hard.
On the other side, when you try to shift the tone of a self-assessment away from being overly critical of your own position and recognized failures and shortcomings, the summary can begin to sound a bit glowing and little things that are reached for seem to stretch into significant accomplishes that have an echo of “look what I did” or “look at what I am or have become.” And big things become grand, if you start to go for it.
Self-assessment is so hard.
And, then, in the end, it’s hard to even know for so which is right and fair, since you are assessing your self — and you are biased and blind. Which is kind of the point in the first place.
Self-assessment is so hard.
Biased and blind, stumbling in the dark and stubbing your own toe kicking yourself for what you haven’t completed, for being a person walking through life with stubbed toes.
Self-assessment is so hard.
Biased and blind, wearing “Joe Cool” (Do people still refer to Joe Cool? I remember a shirt — probably a tank top — from when I was about eight or nine years old with a picture of Snoopy in dark, black sunglass that said “Joe Cool.” I’m sure I wondered why his name wasn’t “Snoopy.” Snoopy’s twin brother, I guess, was named, Joe Cool? Editor’s note: A quick little Wikipedia glance via Google shows that apparently I never watched enough cartoons — I knew it! — As “‘Joe Cool’ may refer to: An alias adopted by Snoopy in the comic strip Peanuts,” among other Joes who came later, including Joe Montana, which I also remember from when I was eight or nine.) — shades, basking in the wondrous glory of how great you can be when you really stop to reflect on all you’ve achieved, like a baller. A champ. Champion of self-assessment. Magnificent, you are, and quite thrilled to have been put through that sound and enlightened evaluation after all.
Joe Cool.
Self-assessment is so hard.
Yet, somehow, self-assessment can be good and is worthwhile. But it takes some hard consideration and examination, even testing.
“Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:7).
“Let us test and examine our ways” (Lamentations 3:40).
“Let a person examine himself” (1 Corinthians 11:28).
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Self-assessment is so hard.
No, it’s not easy, but beneficial. That’s my assessment.
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
P.S. I stopped typing mid-word to pick a piece of almond out of my teeth and when I looked up to the line to continue I had “Self-ass.” Yep, pretty much.
Word Count: 54,290 / On Pace: 55,000 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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