My Life in Weeks // v26

5 min readApr 30, 2019

Everything, as it begins, eventually comes to an end. The adventures we share. The people we share them with. Sometimes we may feel lost, searching for something. But if we look to the horizon, sometimes a faint light appears and we set sail to the very corners of the earth, one last time. (Source)

Every year in the time leading up to my birthday, I look back and I look forward. I think about the times where I loved life and the times where I wanted to crawl in bed and stay all day. It forms a sortove personal yearbook in my head. Since I tend to have a horrible memory, I decided to make this year’s personal yearbook more defined.

The year has been a wild one.

I listened to 43,067 minutes of music on Spotify.

I traveled 97,242 miles while visiting 8 countries and 13 states across the US.

I ran 462 miles with an average pace of 8' 23" including my first half marathon.

Several years ago I was inspired by a WaitButWhy blog post and decided to make my own personal Life in Weeks chart. The version you see below is my third iteration and represents my current state of mind.

I continue to find immense value in putting something like this together. It not only helps me reflect on the year looking back but helps me adjust the future. Each chart represent a chapter of my life. While they show a single point in time, the points on the chart share a much deeper meaning about my mindset each year.

As I look back over the past 3 years, I find myself wanting more context into the charts. I find myself wanting to catalog the mindsets each year. While it is nearly impossible to map out my entire life in a blog post, each year I will outline a few key things which are top of mind.

This year three trends stick out… .

This year I found myself focusing on events which started a broader trend in my life, rather than just a single event. For example, in High School I purchased my first camera. At the time, I didn’t think deeply about it. I knew I enjoyed photography so after saving for a summer I bought a Nikon D90. This turned into my first college job as a photographer in OU Student Media. This position opened campus up to me. I met some of my best friends through photography, I learned what the difference is between a hobby and job, and most importantly, I learned how to constantly push yourself to

During my 5 years I took over 125,000 pictures, traveled to dozens of sports games, and met some of the most amazing people of my life.

Buying the camera was the start of a lifelong passion which continues today. Similarly, joining the University Innovation Fellows program helped me realize the importance of mentoring. To this day, I try to spend time each week working with college students to help them achieve their dreams.

This is not to say that I do not prioritize singular events, while looking back I seemed to naturally focus on broader trends. It’s natural to notice that the past two years does not have anything highlight. It is unclear yet if there is truly nothing there or if it has not come to fruition yet (UIF and photography both took years before I realized their impact).

Second, I have focused on my time. San Francisco is a crazy place. Everyone is curious, driven, and talented at what they do. It is multiplied by the constant success stories. Sit in any coffee shop for 5 minutes and you’ll hear a story about someone who sold their company for “a small amount of $50M”.

I have made several changes to my day-to-day life which have really helped break away from this echo chamber. Instead of listening to technology and startup podcasts, I listen to fiction books through Audible. I deactivated my Facebook and deleted the Instagram app from my phone. I work away from my office at least once a week to change the scenery.

Finally, I have done tons of thinking about my future and that is still ongoing. This past year, I have worked with some incredible people and been pushed to learn a lot. Spending time in San Francisco has pushed me to think critically about what I want my future to be. Do I want to start a startup? Do I want to be technical, business, or design focused? What field do I want to work in?

I still do not have answers for these questions. What I do know is that each day I continue to challenge myself and learn something. Knowledge, like money, compounds its growth. If I continue to learn something every single day, I will find answers to these questions along the way.