Lately a lot of diaries I read have been doing that 40x40 thing -- a list of
things the writer wants to do before turning forty. They can be interesting to
read, but my first response is always, "Those things are for people who aren't
already thirty-five!" My second, more measured response is, "Why forty? Do people
think life ends then?" I hope to do as many interesting things after I'm forty as
I've done in the previous years.
With that in mind, here is a matched pair of lists:
|
40 things I've done before 40 |
40 things I hope to do later |
|
|
1. |
Drive a car |
Learn to ride a motorcycle |
|
2. |
Drive a boat |
live on a boat for a while |
|
3. |
Pilot a plane |
Own a plane |
|
4. |
Live alone |
improve my temper, work ethic, and compassion |
|
5. |
Get an engineering degree |
Remain self-supporting |
|
6. |
Become self-supporting |
Become financially independent (aka retire early) |
|
7. |
get a Masters degree |
get another MS, in Linguistics or Cognitive Science |
|
8. |
Bungie-jump |
keep doing things that scare me |
|
9. |
Skydive |
get certified for skydiving |
|
10. |
Mountain-bike |
mountain bike down steep hills without a death-grip on the brakes |
|
11. |
Rock climb, up to 5.10b |
Successfully climb a 5.11a |
|
12. |
Hang glide |
paraglide |
12. |
soar in a sailplane |
pilot a sailplane |
|
13. |
Parasail |
get IFR certified |
|
14. |
River rafting |
log > 1000 hours flying time |
|
15. |
Get married (yes, this is listed with the adventure sports for a reason) |
stay married (also an adventure) |
|
16. |
Ride in a helicopter |
Pilot a helicopter |
|
17. |
Learn to row |
Win a race in a single |
|
18. |
Learn to windsurf |
Learn to sail |
|
19. |
Kayak |
Kayak well enough to handle rapids (say, class IV) |
|
20. |
scuba dive |
get scuba certified |
|
21. |
travel to Europe |
spend enough time in Great Britain (at least a couple of months) |
|
22. |
travel to Asia |
visit Antarctica |
|
23. |
travel to Australia |
live abroad for a year or two |
|
24. |
travel to New Zealand |
quit my job and spend a year roaming around the US |
|
25. |
travel to more than half of US states |
travel to all 50 states |
|
26. |
speak in public |
teach a class |
|
27. |
own a rowing shell |
own a shell sized just for me |
|
28. |
visit the Reno Air Races |
visit the Oshkosh fly-in |
|
29. |
backpack |
take a child camping and climbing |
|
30. |
own a house |
live in a trailer (while traveling -- both for the freedom and the exercise in |
|
31. |
build a house (have it built for me, that is) |
build another house -- maybe do some of it myself -- and plan it from scratch |
|
32. |
live in the heart of a city |
live in a beautiful place |
|
33. |
live with cats |
improve my writing/photography |
|
34. |
keep a journal (well over a year now!) |
put together and and publish a book |
|
35. |
manage a team |
find a career where I can live anywhere I want |
|
36. |
work on Space Shuttle/Station programs |
publish some of our photography |
|
37. |
donated to charity |
give more time and money away to good causes |
|
38. |
visit New York, New Orleans, London, and Paris |
spend more time in all of the above, plus other great cities |
|
39. |
survive being unemployed for 6 months |
save enough for a year's worth of expenses |
|
40. |
travel alone |
get out to more live music/theater |
Looking over the list, a surprising number of these are either material (own this,
own that) or very concrete (et this or that degree of certification). That may be
the nature of the beast, though; it's easier to write "get scuba-certified" than
to write "really learn how to dive and go do more dives", though the two mean
nearly the same (to me, at least). It would probably be fair to consider all the
degree/certification items as a wish to learn things. Most of the ownership items
reflect either the wish for freedom (airplane, rowing shell) or the wish to -- I
don't know quite how to put it -- live in beauty, like building another house, one
we've designed, in a beautiful place.
Some things that can be goals before they're done (get a cat, live in city) are
just commonplace experiences and hardly seem worth mentioning. I have mentioned
some of them, though, because they're now part of my past, even if not noteworthy.
It's clear that not everything in the list is an accomplishment, but they are all
things I would have hoped to do when I was younger. Some of the to-dos, like
traveling to Antarctica, I may actually complete before turning 40, while others
(learning to fly a helicopter) I may never get around to. But I'll be happy to
wait and see.
Sorry if the above table appears garbled for some readers, by the way; I'm not
sure if all browsers can handle nested tables.