20 years ago I was 11 years old and moving on from Choose Your Own Adventures (#2 about pirates was my fave) to reading science fiction and fantasy books like Ender's Game, The Hobbit, and Piers Anthony. I was listening to Phantom of the Opera and Ray Charles. I was wearing Member's Only jackets and losing them at an astonishing rate. I was paying big bucks for Nike Airs.

15 years ago I was 16 years old and reading Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, Brave New World, Stranger in a Strange Land, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and pretty much anything that made me suspicious of people in general. I was listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zepellin, The Cure, Morrissey, and Journey. I was wearing tie-dye and had long hair. I was driving a red convertible Ford Mustang, and dating a girl who liked to write my name on her arm with hot paperclips. I became a Christian and got into tarot cards, near death experiences, and visions. I started writing poetry.

10 years ago I was 21 years old and I was reading Kundera, Rushdie, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, (pretty much anyone Russian), as well as Kerouac, Thoreau, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I was wearing striped tiger pants, loose t-shirts, Birkenstocks (if any shoes at all), and basically anything that made me feel more like Japhy in Dharma Bums. I was listening to Mazzy Star, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, Pixies, Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, and staying up late on Monday nights to buy anything new that came out at Tower Records. I read all my books at Barnes and Nobel. I lived in a house with 10 others and paid $175/month in rent. I made $500/month working at Todo Loco making burritos. I continued writing poetry and also short stories.

5 years ago I was 26 years old, married, and sort of a zombie. I wasn't reading. Music no longer seemed to affect me. I weighed 20 pounds more than I do now. I wore grey shirts and corduroy pants all the time. I ate spaghetti every night. I watched a lot of television, worked at Amazon, and tried to pour all my fuzzy thoughts into a novel I was writing called The Most Beautiful One. I had very few friends, and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life anymore other than make fun of people on the Internet. I eventually gave up writing altogether.

Today I'm 31 years old, divorced, and engaged again to the most perfect woman for me in the world. I'm reading a mixture of self-help, biographies of 60's icons, Csikszentmihalyi, Hoftstadter, Minsky, light postmodern fiction, and whatever people recommend. I'm listening to love songs, of Montreal, Sinatra, Kings of Convenience, and music is alive for me. I'm wearing my hipster costume, and experimenting with fashion in a way that I've never been interested in before. I finally feel like I am who I really am, and am more excited about life than I've ever been before. This year was all about big bets, doubling down, testing theories about how live should be lived.

Five years from now I'll be 36, and I have a big vision for it that involves living in multiple locations, creating a community of creative enjoyment and business success with Kellianne and friends, and having a lot of momentum towards being able to make my life and the lives of people around me as fruitful and enjoyable as possible. It's going to be awesome. It already is!