34 this month. It’s time to take stock.
This juncture of life feels crucial in a way others weren’t. It feels as if I am at a crucial bend in the road, and if I don’t maneuver it well, I could be permanenly thrown off track and derailed in many important areas of life: career, relationships, and family. I am already late, but not too late, and this feels like a last chance to course correct.
In my mid 20s, I wrote down six desires I wanted to pursue. Most of them related to self-improvement: to be fitter, to be skilled, and so on. And I fulfilled most of them to a reasonable degree.1
By 30, I had narrowed my desires to three: to build a company, write a novel, and have my own happy family. At 32, I bought a house. And became a landlord. At 33, I started a company. I recruited a friend and some interns. I won a competitive £15k grant. I won and fulfilled a £34k contract.
What do I want at 34?
I want a family with a life partner, children, and a comfortably big home. I want children. I want a job with smart coworkers I enjoy working with and that allows me enough income to afford childcare, to send my kids to good schools, and to meet other needs such as travel and coaching, as well as work life balance to spend time with them.
Second, I want my spiritual, feel-good, healthy masculine energy that I had growing up. I want to feel that feeling of gratitude again, where I would feel extraordinarily lucky, good things and people start coming in my life, I become extraordinarily productive, and I see beauty in everything.
I became fit to the extent that people would comment on it. I found my funny side: the most beautiful girl in my meditation retreat called me the funniest person in the group. I became a product manager and I led a product team. I learnt to code and became a senior software engineer. ↩