100 Things I Need to Do if I Want to Be Successful In Life
“Any fool can live. The point is to die at the end.”
These words, sometimes attributed to Albert Einstein, have been with me since the day I turned fifteen. We were living in Alabama at the time, and I had kissed my first girlfriend a few days prior. A few months later, we would move overseas, and I would never see her again.
Since then, I’ve been writing the 100 things I need to do if I want to be successful in life at least once a year. It’s something like a reality check for me.
This is the 2022 edition.
- Clean the apartment because the mother-in-law is coming to visit this weekend
- Drink a glass of red wine to help with the mother-in-law-induced anxiety
- Go for a run to stay healthy and maybe not come back before the mother-in-law leaves the house
- Clean the cat litter because it’s stinky
- Kiss my wife on the way
- Buy yogurts with cookie crumbs for daughter #3
- Tell daughter #3 who just saw I wrote daughter #3 that she’s, of course, daughter #1
- Tell the others they’re also #1 when they come and ask why daughter #3 is #1
- Brush my teeth before going to the dentist
- Trim my nails
- Learn how to type faster
- Find a side-hustle that will make me rich
- Create and sell a course about the said side-hustle to make me even richer
- Watch all the past minion movies before watching the new one with daughter #3 (who’s really #1) next week
- Buy flowers for my wife AND the mother-in-law (before she arrives)
- Renew the mother-in-law’s Medium membership using my referral link
- Stop adding my referral link to articles. Nobody’s using it
- Choose to laugh about it
- Look at my cat who’s sleeping on his favorite chair of the day
- Envy him and think about my life
- Polish my leather shoes before next weekend
- Book the mother-in-law’s favorite restaurant
- Check when her favorite waiter will be there and adjust the timing accordingly
- Give him a script as of which compliments to pay the mother-in-law
- Add a heading to make people stop their skimming
A heading to make people stop their skimming
26. Stop the stopwatch to gain some time and write a short intro
27. Invent something about an inexisting girlfriend to appeal to the readers' emotions
28. Tell myself it’s not really cheating; it’s just storytelling
28. Find a way to monetize the cat’s Instagram
29. Also, find a way to increase the number of followers one thousandfold
30. Make a mental note to brainstorm ideas with the mother-in-law
31. Download the mobile game Paraparylly made by a friend
32. Take a few screenshots and post them on the cats’ socials to help him
33. Consider asking the mother-in-law to do the same
34. Remember when I still thought I could make money playing video games
35. Wonder why I didn’t do that
36. Take a break
37. Go to the toilet during the break
38. Leave the phone on the table to avoid spending 30 minutes there
39. Check if there are some programs for adults addicted to their phones in my area
40. As every year since I turned 20 and read Douglas Adams’ books, get excited about the number 42 coming up
41. Try and fail to write something here
42. Ask myself what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything
43. Enjoy the feeling of repeating the same joke for years
44. Wonder briefly if this annoys the mother-in-law
45. Remember that maybe, but it makes my wife laugh — which is more important
46. Catch and hug one of the kiddos walking too close to my desk
47. Take the cat with us and have hugging time with the cat for a few minutes
48. Take a small break and do ten push-ups
49. Do one more just to be sure I did ten
50. Feel proud for accomplishing this simple goal today
51. Consider adding another heading to make people stop skimming again
52. Agree to do it since it worked the first time
Another heading to make people (you in particular) stop skimming again
53. Add a disclaimer about being sorry for wasting people’s time with my article
54. Wonder why some people take the time to write “you wasted my time” in the comments
55. Wonder why they didn’t simply stop reading and clicked away
56. Realize it’s a bit the same with my 9 to 5 and ask myself why I’m staying there and working in what some (many) people would call a toxic environment
57. Talk about this with the mother-in-law during the weekend. Strangely, she usually has good advice
58. Add toothpicks to the shopping list. And if you think toothpicks aren’t needed to be successful in life, you’re VERY wrong.
59. Watch the cat going back to his favorite chair of the day for more napping after eating some dry food
60. Wonder again why I wasn’t born a cat
61. Smile
62. Send a DM to Bob on Twitter. Ask him if he caught any good mackerels recently
63. Send a picture of the cat to my grandma, she likes him a lot
64. Ask daughter #2 to take a selfie with daughter #3 and send it to their great-grandma — she likes them a lot too
65. Tell my wife I love her
66. Tell daughter #3 (who’s really #1) I love her too since she heard me tell my wife I loved her
67. Prepare a surprise for the whole family during the next holidays together
68. Buy a mega millions ticket and dream a bit
69. Kiss wife again
70. Wonder what it would be like to be 21 again and identify three things I would change
71. Try to change these three things now
72. Look outside; it’s sunset time
73. Scratch my nose
74. Take the example of the cat and stretch my legs
75. Find a conference willing to invite me as a speaker
76. Find a topic that could be interesting for conference organizers
77. Ask the mother-in-law, who happens to be a conference organizer, to help me with this
78. Work on my “meeting new people this year” goal
79. Ask myself if I need, want, or have to do all this?
80. Add some separator of some sort to make people stop skimming, assuming some are still there. Maybe another fake quote from Einstein.
“Another fake quote from Einstein.”
- Albert Einstein
81. Remember to tweet the quote above, I like it!
82. And to write some more of them, tweets make me happy because they make me laugh. They are short and witty (sometimes)
83. Generally, write more
84. Explore new voices and new genres
85. Do the same when discussing with other people
86. Listen to them more and speak less
87. Even with the mother-in-law
88. Try to teach the kids this skill
89. Try to put them to bed earlier also
90. Hug them more
91. Hug wife more
92. Hug cat more
93. Hug mother-in-law at least once
94. Stop making jokes about the mother-in-law — she has access to my articles
95. Hide a lovely message to the mother-in-law in one of my old articles
96. Leave this space blank intentionally
97. Be proud of my accomplishments
98. Be hopeful for more
99. Pretend to be a philosopher
100. Forget about the list. Live instead.
Backstory This article started as an answer to the 100 things challenge, but I failed to do it under 20 minutes and forgot about the timer altogether. Still, I reached 100, and that’s no small feat. Give it a try if you think it’s easy. GB Rogut inspired me. Here’s her list of 100 things.
