The Overlooked Line

So, you want to evaluate your life.  You want to ponder your actions, whether they are good or bad.  What do you consider?  What do you think about?  Do you drive to ethics for our deliberation?  Do you bring forth natural law and ponder it?  Do you look at a list or right and wrong behaviors?

I would suggest you follow the catechism in the section on Confession and Absolution:  "Consider your station in life according to the Ten Commandments."

This may be one of the most overlooked lines of the catechism.

When we consider our actions, when we evaluate ourselves, we don't do this in some abstract sense - as though we seek to find whether our actions are abstractly good or bad.  No - we are not abstractions - we are creatures.  We have been created by God in a specific time and put into specific places, specific vocations.

We examine ourselves in light of our vocations -- we examine ourselves not in light of what is or isn't good... we examine ourselves in light of whether or not we have done what God has given us to do, in light of whether or not we have let him be in charge.

Adam's sin was wishing to step out of his vocation -- he no longer wanted to be the Creature he was created to be.  He wished to be God instead, knowing right and wrong.  If you evaluate yourself apart from the vocations which God has given you, you fall into the same trap.  You will begin to say, "What I have done is good" without wondering or noting that it isn't what was given to you to do.  Or you will let yourself be burdened by false guilt, by the lies of Satan heeping impossible burdens upon you.

Keep centered in your vocations, for these are gifts to you from God.  This is especially true when you examine yourself.  You examine... yourself, not some abstraction.