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Today is my birthday.
I am now on the last lap of my 30s. Might be past the halfway mark if we're being real about it which was a fun thing to sit with this morning.
I have seen way too many "X things I've learned at X age" posts. They all sound the same. And I honestly don’t know if I’ve learned 39 truly unique things worth writing down.
What I do have is a list of things I still want to do. The things I think about after the kids are asleep and my wife has dozed off halfway through Landman.
I want to run a 6-minute mile again. This used to be easy and the fact that it sounds hard now is exactly why it needs to happen.
Gotta stop pretending that being a "former athlete" is a fitness plan. It's not.
Pick up the guitar again.
Learn piano from scratch. This one might be delusional but it's staying on the list.
Actually reach fluency in Spanish. It was my wife's first language and our kids should grow up bilingual without it feeling like some big project. I'm the bottleneck here and I know it.
Continue teaching my kids to be deeply proud Americans and deeply proud of their Mexican heritage. Flags flying on the Fourth. Ofrenda built together every Día de Muertos.
Tend to our garden. Like actually tend to it. Not just plant stuff in April and act shocked when it's all dead by June.
Build something with my hands that isn't a slide deck.
Be my kids' memory of a happy childhood. Everything else comes after that.
Capture more. More photos. More videos.
Coach every team they'll let me coach. Even the ones where I have no idea what I'm doing.
Protect Sunday dinners. Game nights. Pizza Fridays. Traditions strong enough that our kids will fight to keep them when they have their own families.
More time with my wife. And not "more time" in some vague aspirational way. I mean real, phone-in-the-other-room, undistracted time. We hit ten years of marriage this year. The next ten should be louder.
Keep showing up at Mass. Even the Sundays where we are running to and from youth sports games. I converted to Catholicism last year and it wasn't a casual thing. It was about sharing my wife's faith, walking with our kids as they start Catholic education, and choosing something rooted in tradition and community that's older and sturdier than me. I don't talk about this much publicly. But it belongs on this list more than most things here.
Pray more. Scroll less.
Read the thinkers who actually wrestled with doubt, not just the ones who made belief look easy.
Drink more water. Less alcohol.
Get regular bloodwork.
Spend more time outside. Literally just more time in the sun.
Build something I'm proud to put my name on.
Worry less about what other people are building.
Mentor someone younger who's figuring it out.
Work with founders building things that matter. Not just things that raise. Feeling pretty fortunate to already be doing a lot of this today.
Get better at saying no to work that doesn't fit, even when the check is good. Especially when the check is good.
Provide for my family with money AND with time. Not one at the expense of the other.
Write more. Not for reach or impressions. Just to think more clearly.
See my kids grow in their confidence, doing things we’ve taught them.
Read more books.
Finish more books.
See more of these great United States.
Get my kids into the outdoors early. Hiking, camping, fishing, whatever sticks.
Stop taking my phone with me to the bathroom.
In fact, be less addicted to my phone in general.
Show up for my friends. Not "mean to" show up. Actually show up. The gap between those two things gets wider every year.
Write real letters. On paper. To people who matter.
Quit the thing where I get fired up about a new hobby for two weeks and then quietly abandon it.
Get better at doing nothing with the people I love. Not everything needs to be optimized or productive.
See the Jaguars win the Super Bowl. Ok this one might be a bit more out of my control, but hey, manifestation is real.
Ideally, I’ll also look back at this list next February and have a lot less to check off.
39 is a weird age. Not old. Not young. I just feel... aware. You stop telling yourself you'll get to it eventually and you start picking what actually gets your time.
It’s ok to admit you don’t have it all figured out, even at 39, but I know what matters to me. And I think that's enough to build on…
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