Life Audit

Every few years or so, I sit down with myself and examine my values, attitudes, and beliefs.

I learned to do this at university, in a sociology class I half paid attention to. I don’t remember much else from that course, but that idea lodged itself somewhere deep.

So between the new year and my birthday in February, I do what I’ve come to call a ‘life audit’. I take stock. To ask what habits and thoughts have served me -- what needed to be shed, what still feels like mine, and what have I been carrying simply because it’s familiar?

This year, I needed to re-examine everything after my father passed. I added more questions: What will I ultimately leave behind -- my legacy? What kind of person do I want to be? Not be known as, but actually be.

Twenty years ago, I wondered how my life would turn out. Not in a theoretical way, but in that aching, existential way only teenagers and philosophers seem to manage… all intensity, all longing. I didn’t know what the answer was back then, only that I wanted my life to mean something.

Four years later, I thought I’d found the answer. I wrote a blog post, not for anyone else, really, but for myself, called “The Lesson is to Be Sincere.” I was 25, I had just spent some time living with a Viscountess, and still reeling from things I didn’t yet know how to articulate.

I was convinced back then, that at the end of the day, that real success was intangible, and this life was impermanent. That we came into the world with nothing, and that we would leave with nothing.

Some of that belief came into focus more recently. Life gave me a sharp mirror, the kind you don’t ask for but can’t ignore. It asked me to speak up. To stand firm. Not just for myself, but for the people who might come after me. To name what was wrong, even when it was easier to just stay quiet. To live the values I claimed to hold.

So today, for now, I can say this and mean it: A life well lived is one that becomes the difference that makes a difference.

Not in a grand, history-book kind of way. But in calling out what harms, and doing your part to make sure it’s not repeated. In shining a light on what’s been hidden, and choosing not to look away even when looking comes with consequences.

That’s the audit that matters most, I think. For me, it’s the only measure that makes sense anymore.

Love, Vx