When I turned 27, a friend of mine pointed out that 30 was right around the corner. And while this was kind of terrifying, it was also motivating. The way I saw it, I could (and might, occasionally) spend the next three years freaking out or I could put the milestone to use and make it a deadline for some long terms goals I have bouncing around in my mind. I chose the latter. Wish me luck!
(To find out more about why I chose these goals, read this post)
- Pay off my student loans
- Two down, three to go!
- Get a book published
- Pay off current credit card
- Open a new credit card & start earning airline miles
Donate blood- Hike the Narrows
- Hike Half Dome
- Hike Mt. Langley
- Learn to play the ukulele
- Go to Harry Potter World in Orlando
- Take a cooking class
- Take a Yes Man trip
- Make my family tree
- See a Broadway play
- Go out for a really expensive dinner
- Go camping
- Stay at a 5-star hotel
- Buy a bunch of plants and keep them alive
- Go to a bottomless mimosa brunch
- Go on an LA staycation
- Know at least 20 recipes by heart
- Read every book on Time’s 100 greatest books of all time
- 1984
- The Adventures of Augie March
- All the King’s Men
- American Pastoral
- An American Tragedy
Animal Farm- Appointment in Samarra
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret- The Assistant
- At Swim-Two-Birds
- Atonement
- Beloved
- The Berlin Stories
- The Big Sleep
- The Blind Assassin
- Blood Meridian
- Brideshead Revisited
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- Call it Sleep
- Catch-22
- The Catcher in the Rye
- A Clockwork Orange
- The Confessions of Nat Turner
- The Corrections
- The Crying of Lot 49
- A Dance to the Music of Time
- The Day of Locust
- Death Comes for the Archbishop
- A Death in the Family
- The Death of the Heart
- Deliverance
- Dog Soldiers
- Falconer
- The French Lieutenant’s Woman
- The Golden Notebook
- Go Tell it on the Mountain
- Gone with the Wind
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Gravity’s Rainbow
- The Great Gatsby
- A Handful of Dust
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
- The Heart of the Matter
- Herzog
- Housekeeping
- A House for Mr. Biswas
- I, Claudius
- Infinite Jest
- Invisible Man
- Light in August
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe- Lolita
Lord of the Flies- The Lord of the Rings
- Loving
- Lucky Jim
- The Man Who Loved Children
- Midnight’s Children
- Money
- The Moviegoer
- Mrs. Dalloway
- Naked Lunch
- Native Son
- Neuromancer
- Never Let Me Go
On the Road- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- The Painted Bird
- Pale Fire
- A Passage to India
- Play it as it Lays
- Portnoy’s Complaint
- Possession
- The Power & the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie- Rabbit, Run
- Ragtime
- The Recognitions
- Red Harvest
- Revolutionary Road
- The Sheltering Sky
Slaughterhouse Five- Snow Crash
- The Sot-Weed Factor
- The Sound & the Fury
- The Sportswriter
- The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
- The Sun Also Rises
Their Eyes Were Watching God- Things Fall Apart
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- To the Lighthouse
- Tropic of Cancer
- Ubik
- Under the Net
- Under the Volcano
- Watchmen
- White Noise
- White Teeth
- Wide Sargasso Sea
- Fall in Love
- Make a time capsule to open when I’m 40
- Learn to drive a stick shift
- Go curling
- Stomp grapes and make wine
- Blow glass
Go to a championship game (World Series, Stanley Cup, etc.)done! read about it here.
- Run a marathon (maybe)
For those of you also approaching the milestone of 30, those who are still a ways from it, and those who are a ways past it, may you always know that you have the power to do anything you set your mind do. Age really is just a number, and you can kickass no matter what that number may be.
