The Purpose of THE HAT LIST – Permuting Priorities

A Hat List is like a bucket list of sorts. All the things you want to do before you kick the bucket; all the things you want to do before you toss the hat (graduate). I decided to make one for high school and soon I’ll be making one for college.

Most of my goals revolve around soul-bettering practices like building a bookcase, reading War and Peace, or going on this sweet 4,000 mile road trip I have planned (which happens to be part of my blog’s banner. In other word, look up.) Those are some of the BHAG’s, big hairy-ass goals that drive me to be great. As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said,

“If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it:
Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth.”

These goals work like dreams, helping to set a good destination point–just like my current destination is San Fran. But then their needs to be goals to keep you motivated. Reachable, quickly achievable goals; stuff you can start doing right now. I’m in no position to drive across half of the US, I have no idea how to build a bookshelf, and I currently don’t have the time or energy to tackle War and Peace; but I can get an advanced SCUBA certification, or begin brewing my own wine so that it can be ready when I turn 21, or learn the constellations by name. I can learn how to do a handstand, commit to memory the beginning of Moby Dick, start a quote compilation, and found a creative writing/thinking blog. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous quote “A person’s mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions” is exactly the point of this blog, and is one benefit of a hat list–to keep learning and growing and creating, always broadening the breadth of you perspective.

All these things are pretty cool accomplishments, but it’s more than that. As a regular ol’ high school kid I’ve got pressures about the future, about college and money and expectations. I found my priorities getting out of wack. I know that in these years, what really matters is the permanent things, the things you can carry off to college with you, like character and experiences. Pretty soon, my memory of my high school GPA will be as faded as it is irrelevant. A lot of the people I know now I may not in a few years. I don’t want to worry about insignificant things like what I get on this next literature test or even what my reputation is like. Instead I want to foster a love for reading and I want to build in myself a well-anchored character and integrity. Its senior year for me, and I have so much work to do I barely see my parents during the week. I’m about to head off for college so I need, desperately, to spend time with my parents and younger brothers, to let cure those relationships with the people who matter most.

For me this hat list serves a purpose, to permute my priorities in a way that will make me the best person I can be. I want to be able to self-actualize–to have no regrets about things I should have done. I have a hell of a lot of regrets for the things I did do, but that’s what school is for, to make mistakes. In fact, I want to make all my mistakes now, much like you would rather have braces in middle-school, because no matter how annoying they are in middle-school it beats the alternatives. I would much rather have regrets for what I did than what I didn’t. I’m sure I’d be less hurt physically and emotionally if I never took those risks but as John Shedd said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were build for.”

The purpose of a hat list is to help one live their life to the fullest, to work with purpose, and to prevent them from becoming short-sighted–from focusing on all of life’s stressful, insignificant intricacies. Life should be spent in thirds: the first third learning, the second third earning, and the last third returning. And it would be small-minded to look at that as an equation that simply works with monetary things. It is about knowledge and grace and beauty.

And what I propose may sometimes (or most always) include risk to some extent. But Annie Dillard once wrote that taking the safe, sinless road was “nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.”

I encourage you to permute your priorities with me so that, “When I am dead, I hope it may be said: ‘His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.’” That quote by Hilaire Belloc reminded me to tell you about the two ideas I consider when making decisions or setting goals:

First, will this leave me with a good story to tell my grandchildren? I want to experience the world so that I can inspire others to do so. This is also a good thought to have after you make a big mistake of some sort. For instance, I ran into my friend’s Dad’s car during prom a few nights ago. I leave my sunroof open a lot; and on a completely separate and unrelated note, it rains a lot. I almost got arrested in London’s Heathrow airport because I was carrying a 5 inch blade onto the plane and I was a minor (unbeknownst to me at the time, I got past Roman security with it, had it with me in my bag, inches from my feet, at 30,000 feet in the air, while the stewardess asked me what I wanted to drink). From that experience I earned a good lesson (do not screw with Britain’s security; when in Rome, feel free), I have a criminal record on the great island of fish and chips, bad teeth and bad weather, cheerio and double-decker buses, and I gained a great story to tell my grandchildren.

Second, if I do this, will I be able to rest my head easily on my pillow at night? When all has been said and done, the things that hold prime importance are a restful sleep, a clear conscience, clean air, an abundance of water, and simple pleasures, yet these are the things we sacrifice most easily for money or fame or ambition or convenience, or whatever impermanent things we seek that are destined to disappear like the leaves are in autumn, where it’s just a matter of when.

And so now it’s just about me checking things off the list: learn to juggle, check; solve a Rubik’s cube in less than a minute and a half, check; ask this one girl to prom, check; learn to draw, check; write poetry, check; savor On the Road by Jack Kerouac, check; learn how to play an instrument (harmonica and drums), check; start paining, check; hang my hammock, check; start a blog…check.