Wow — what a decade.

For me it was a fast ten years. My forties whizzed by. Mostly good. A quick review:

Highlights

  • Being a dad/watching my child grow up.
  • Staying happily married.
  • Developing a daily writing habit and improving my craft.
  • Becoming a published science fiction author.
  • Continuing to make music with my friends.
  • Recovering my physical and mental health after some rough patches (gastritis, insomnia, anxiety-depression).
  • Developing and implementing an investment plan and getting richer, achieving a level of financial security.

Self-knowledge/lessons learned

  • For me, slow and steady is almost always the best approach. Occasional sprints are fine, but only with sufficient rest and relaxation in-between. Trying to maintain a “push” pace for extended amounts of time isn’t worth it for me, and just leads to chronic stress.
  • I need a lot of exercise to feel my best. Multiple hours of walking every day, strength exercise almost every day, and ideally some kind of competitive sport at least once a week (the latter which I have sorely missed during pandemic).
  • What feels to me like a minor expression of anger can read much larger/angrier to others, so I need to carefully control this (especially around my kid — big parenting lesson).
  • Daily meditation, even for very short amounts of time, yields outsized results (in terms of emotional clarity, creative inspiration, and stress reduction).
  • Creative expression (writing and/or music) is essential for my mental health, regardless of if those efforts lead to any kind of external success (getting published, sales, reviews, etc.).

What I’m aiming for this coming decade

  • Being a good dad, husband, son, friend, and citizen (being loving, kind, empathetic, loyal, strong, helpful).
  • Getting better at writing and making music.
  • Creating one or more “hits” — creative work that deeply connects with a very large number of people.
  • Getting physically stronger, improving my health.
  • Achieving financial freedom (a level of wealth that enables more travel, majority of income from passive sources, ability to donate large amounts to favorite charitable causes, a few luxury items).
  • Doing what I can to improve my country (less political corruption, more public wealth/investment, more critical thinking and evidence-based governance).

What about you, kind reader? What were the highlights of your last ten years? How will you make the next decade a great one?