• TL;DR
• Introduction
• Social
• California Trip
• Career
• Switching Jobs
• At Citadel
• Books
• Routines
• Methods
• Meditation
• Circadian Rhythm
• Fitness
• Running
• Yoga
• Lifting
• Diet
• Going Forward
• Conclusion

TL;DR

2021 was a socially ambitious, career-intensive, and well-organized year for me.

Introduction

I began 2021 with a bold proclamation. Selecting three long-term goals, I advertised to many that I would focus on these goals exclusively until completion. I named these "dots" and stated that I'd tattoo a small black circle on the inside of my wrist on completion of each goal. If I persisted, my inner arm would become a tapestry of accomplishment. Trying to motivate me, I considered tattooing three dots as open-circle outlines to remind me of the pursuits constantly.

It seems I should have done so. My selected dots were:

• Meditate 1 hour/day for a year
• Run a marathon
• Have $1mm in assets

I am confidently on track for the $1mm in assets by 30, but I failed the meditation goal, and this year's running was a disaster. Yet I maintain - don't discount me until I'm dead.

What follows is a holistic review of my life in 2021. I muse on the good times had, review the books I read, analyze my performance on selected habits, and discuss my intentions for the upcoming year.

Social

This year, my social life consisted of hanging around Chicago, hanging around NYC, a solid California road trip, and going to Outside Lands music festival. “Hanging around” encompasses bars, restaurants, clubs, Michigan football games, and a smattering of concerts.

After deplaning at O’Hare on my way home from the holidays in January, I waited on the jet bridge for my gate-checked guitar. There was another man there doing the same thing. We struck up a conversation, and he mentioned he worked at Citadel. In a shared Uber back to the city, we realized we had many of the same interests and decided to chill. This guy is now my good friend Paul Stanley, and I’ve met some other quality people through him- Lucas Rooney, Eli Lipsky, and Michael Clark. It was good to meet you guys this year, and I look forward to chilling more in 2022.

Enjoying some cigars on my roof with Lucas, Paul, and Liv Moretti:

Marco Schwiebert was in Chicago on a short-term rental for the better part of the year. I had the pleasure of meeting his girlfriend, Sammi Cohen. It was great spending time together this year- a few dinners, a few drinks, and Spring Awakening were all great times. Thanks also to Marco for introducing me to Samir Quadri and Greg Moe! Hope to see more of them. Also, Marco, please start following the rules:

Chicago lost some good people this year, sadly. My good friends Liv Moretti and Xander Neben have vacated to Vancouver. Since you left, I’ve missed you guys, and the loft will always have a special place in my heart. I hope things are going phenomenally up north and that Xander is still asking strangers about the last time they cried. At one of the last loft dinner parties, I captured a photo that describes the spirit nicely (Adam Heins):

Speaking of the loft, I had an excellent time chilling with Siva Gangavarapu this year. It was fantastic to see you purchase the Bucktown place, and I’m looking forward to enjoying the roof more next summer. Also, what a move bringing Vishrut Dixit back to Chicago. Vish here’s to more acted scenes and general optimal living.

A particular memory I enjoyed was getting together for Spring Awakening. My good friend Shantam Ravan was visiting Chicago, and we had a good vibe running through our squad. Good to meet Samir Quadri and Joe Bianco that weekend.

My birthday (6/26) this year was also memorable. I spent the preceding week in NYC working, then Friday 6/25 went to Westlight in Williamsburg with Ethan Cartwright, Aman Karunakaran, and Ben Swanson-Ralph. We had drinks, enjoyed views, and stayed out until 4 am exploring Manhattan. I flew back to Chicago early the following day to receive my extended family in Chicago for the first time. It was fantastic to show them my little Chicago life and take my sisters walking around the neighborhood I’ve grown to love. That night, we went to Gene and Georgetti for dinner. Julian Frankel, John Benson, and Ittai Svidler joined us. We had a lovely time and snagged this photo:

I went to California for the Outside Lands music festival in San Francisco in the fall. The aforementioned friend Ethan Cartwright was my ride-or-die for the trip, and we linked up with our friends Nate Tattrie, Matt Ferguson, Roy Ziv, and their SF entourage. My favorite shows were Khruangbin, Glass Animals, The Strokes, Brittany Howard, and Tame Impala. The energy of our group was great, and it was awesome chilling with everybody. There were lots of great photos from that weekend, but my favorite was:

Last year, my family intended to do a large get-together in Detroit for Thanksgiving. We were unable to do so because of the pandemic. This year we rescheduled, and I returned to my hometown for a big Thanksgiving reminiscent of my childhood. This gathering was the most extensive family gathering we’ve had in years, and it was beautiful to do. Additionally, I was able to hang out a bit with my good friends Hunter Manikas and Ariana Serventi, and we snapped this photo:

California Trip

In early August, I took my brother on a week-long trip to California. On arrival, we rented a beautiful blue Mustang and settled into Santa Monica as a home base for our stay in LA. We bummed around the pier to do some sightseeing the first morning. After eating a great lunch at Hillstone, we raced over to the observatory to do a bit of hiking. Once we tired out, we headed to see some friends in La Brea. Matthew Ladis and Harris Monoson gave us a warm welcome, and they introduced us to Matt’s visiting buddy Sam Doliner. Matt took us over to a house show performed by Stone (Prtty Ridiculous). After that, we smashed some In-N-Out and cruised home for some Ted Lasso.

The next day, we woke up and needed to make a flight lesson. My brother is in pilot school, so this was an excellent way to bond. I got to fly a plane for the first time over Malibu, and the sights were amazing. Plus, the place had a pretty solid dog too.

That night we smashed some sushi in Santa Monica with Matt and some of his friends, then hit the hay early. Matt- thanks a ton for showing us around LA. We had a fabulous time. I was happy we got to see each other more this year in LA/Chicago/SF, and we should continue to make this happen. Keep me posted on where you’ll be seeing shows this year.

We woke up early to cruise the PCH from LA to San Francisco. I was thrilled that we had the convertible; what a fun car to drive. Being on the PCH itself felt like I was playing Forza, but with the added benefit of the breeze in your hair. We stopped for a scenic lunch and got into SF a bit late.

We were only in SF for one day, and we spent it playing 18 holes of frisbee golf at Golden Gate Park. Needing to break a tie, we shot for the goalposts of the soccer nets on the polo field. John ended up beating me, and I lamented during our Italian restaurant dinner that evening.

In the morning, we cruised out to my Aunt Barb's place in the Sierra Nevada foothills. We hadn't seen my aunt for a few years, but we saw my cousin Carey for the first time in about a decade. The natural beauty of my aunt's Grass Valley compound is only surpassed by her generous hospitality and fantastic cooking. Carey took us for a long walk in the hills the first night, and Barb served a great dinner. The following day Carey showed us a quiet spot on the Yuba river, and we spent the day swimming and rock climbing. Barb and Carey- it was wonderful to spend some time with you, and I hope the winter finds you well.

However, we needed to peel out of there that night. We had a hot date at Yosemite. We stopped briefly in Folsom to get pedicures and raced to the national park. At night, the drive to the Yosemite Valley entrance is pitch-black, unpopulated, and surrounded by mountains cloaked in darkness. It also makes for enjoyable driving, given nobody is around. We raced up to our hotel and got a good night's rest for the next day's hike.

It was our last day in California, and we intended to make the most of it. After slamming some Pedialyte, we cruised over to the valley. We shopped for hikes and settled on doing the trail up to Yosemite Falls. Packing a drawstring bag with five water bottles, we became alarmed when we noticed that the other trekkers had full hiking backpacks, walking sticks, and far deeper water reserves than we did. Undeterred, we proceeded up the mountain. We laughed. We cried. We took a couple of long breaks and copiously applied sunscreen. And we made it to the top with a singular bottle of water left. Just as we were turning around to head back, we noticed people swimming in the pooled waters of Yosemite Falls. Considering this too good an opportunity to pass up, we joined them.

We headed back from there, exhausted. We sat poolside at our hotel in the evening, watched the sunset over the valley, and observed the bats flying around high overhead.

I am deeply appreciative of this opportunity to spend time traveling with my brother. I am proud of who he is becoming and immensely thrilled that we have pleasant personalities for traveling together.

It was a fantastic vacation, and I look forward to planning even better ones in the future.

Career

Switching Jobs

For most of 2020, I worked at Ocient, a relational database startup headquartered in Chicago. On the first of September, I began preparing to switch to the high-frequency trading (HFT) industry. Beginning interviews in late October, I secured HRT/Optiver/Citadel Securities/Jump offers by early December. HRT/CitSec offered the highest compensation, with CitSec slightly less weighted to the signing bonus. This allocation is preferable because it anchors your starting position for higher year-over-year payments. Given that the two positions were comparable and that the culture of both firms was equally appealing, CitSec was the rational choice.

Despite my best efforts, I am still not a purely rational automaton. In the fall of my sophomore year of college, I interviewed with CitSec for an internship position. The day before the interview, I received an invitation to a networking dinner for the firm. At this dinner, I met some brilliant people and was incredibly impressed. Leaving the dinner, I felt a rush of imposter syndrome. Describing this on the phone to my grandfather, he assured me that I did indeed deserve to be there and that I needed to have more confidence in my intelligence/skills. I hesitantly accepted this notion then resolved to do my best in the interview.

I bombed the interview so badly that I cried in the Duderstadt the next day. This failure was primarily a reflection of my poor understanding of software engineering interview processes and my lack of preparation for them. At the time, it felt like an affirmation of personal inability, a painful experience for me.

So with a delight and feeling of victory in my gut, I accepted my top-of-market CitSec offer in December 2020. I took about a month off and began working on 1/18/21.

At Citadel

I work in CitSec’s ETF Market-Making group (ETFMM). The group is split into three orgs: trading, quantitative research (QR), and development. Primarily working in our pricing space, I develop infrastructural components that communicate external and modeled market information throughout ETFMM’s trading machine. The natural extension of this is handling the same information in a historical modeling setting, meaning I additionally work on tools used by our quants to wrangle this data for research purposes. Beyond the development work, I steward the configuration and deployment of these systems, serving as an enabler to our quants and traders.

Operating as described has improved software engineering skills that I did not need to utilize at Ocient. When I was at Ocient the product was a singular binary. Most of my development was on product initiatives with maturation times of 2-10 months. There were a small number of customer deployments and a customer engineering group mediating interaction.

Far from a singular binary, Citadel’s trading machine is a vast mosaic of components. As a desk engineer, I do not work exclusively on product initiatives with long maturation times. I interact directly with my customers, who are ETFMM traders/quants that are highly competent, hardworking, and demanding. This requires me not only to execute on work items, but to define what they are.

The new challenges presented at Citadel have forced me to improve my communication with my customers, navigate a more sprawling codebase, and work with stakeholders to make the best product decision before implementation.

The organizational structure of ETFMM is satisfactory. I have good relationships with development leadership and find them competent. CitSec maintains a high technical standard for leaders/managers, which minimizes corporate cruft in the daily rhythm. Stellar engineers and scientists from various backgrounds are attracted to the firm by reputation or compensation. I work daily with both astrophysics PhDs and accomplished engineers. Working with excellent, uncompromising people pushes me to be a better engineer. In the advent of mis-hire, the incompetent disappear quickly- a merciful act by management, shielding competent engineers from suffering.

Culturally the firm is also acceptable. Even in disagreement, I find communications between members to be respectful. ETFMM management invests in growing my career and encourages me to increase my decision-making involvement. The firm is demanding, but ETFMM is not sweaty. It is feasible to be a solid contributor working 50 hour weeks, and I’ve found myself an excellent contributor working 60. It is a big company, so my experience may not generalize, but I’ve found ETFMM development to be a great place to work.

Lastly, the lifestyle perks have been fantastic. Citadel provides three meals a day, Uber Blacks for the daily commute, and the Chicago office has a good gym. Additionally, since my team is split between NYC/Chicago, I can travel to NYC every month and frequently commute via Citadel’s private jet. The two-city lifestyle feels very slick, and I’ve appreciated the chance to form closer personal relationships with my coworkers via in-person interaction.

Books

All of the books I read this year, and a one sentence description of each:

• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson: An entertaining and slovenly ride, that resonated with my base appreciation for a zealot on a misson.
• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami: A gentle book that is deeply reflective and easy to read.
• Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Full Trilogy): A surrealist science fiction series that captivates with the first book, and though providing some vividly memorable scenes in the sequels, ultimately loses the thread of its plot.
• First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami: A collection of odd short stories with a couple of gems, notably “Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova.”
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (Full Series): A hilarious and existential ride through the universe, and one that I enjoyed very much.
• Atomic Habits by James Clear: A rational-effective approach to personal change that resonated with me.
• Chaos Monkeys by Antonio Martinez: A brusquely written tale of Silicon Valley success.
• Mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl: A masterfully written reflection on human suffering and purpose.
• Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (Full Trilogy): The tale of the colonization of Mars, told at personal, geopolitical, and ecological scale- this is now my all time favorite science fiction series, and my strongest recommendation from this list.
• Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut: An entertaining reflection on the nature of human will/memory.
• Surely you’re Joking Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman: An honest but egotistical reflection on the curious life of Richard Feynman.
• Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe: A sensationalized story of class conflict in New York City.

Routines

This section is a review of my habit performance in 2021. If you are uninterested in my tracking methods, my meditation practice, my sleep schedule, or my fitness routine, I suggest skipping to the conclusion.

Methods

Some friends and I meet virtually every Sunday evening to discuss our habits and lives. These discussions are motivated by the determination to live our lives ambitiously. This goal is realized every week by our actions. To understand how our actions affect our lives, we must understand those actions. The fundamental tool we use is a simple spreadsheet habit tracker. Each member reviews their previous and upcoming weeks and answers higher-level questions about their lives. This group is precious to my lifestyle, and I love all the members.

The Hero’s Journey habit tracker serves nicely as a primary source for a holistic life review. A solid week looks like this:

A shit week looks like this:

In addition to my tracker, I frequently set time-based intentions for my goals. I do this via Google calendar, which also serves as a rich source of information for this review. A solid week here looks like:

Whereas a shit week looks like:

I haven’t done a quantitative analysis correlating my calendar data with my habit tracker. My intuition is that I am > 100% more likely to execute a task if I’ve made my calendar for the week. I will continue setting time-based intentions for my habits via the calendar with even more consistency in 2021.

For fitness specifically, I use a Notion checklist note that looks like this:

Doing this consistently provided me a rich source of information to use when reflecting on my fitness goals, and it was fun cross-correlating it with my calendar/tracker.

Having date-indexed data on my year was useful, but it still took a decent bit of thought and manual collating to do my routine analysis below. Note the absence of charts. I wish all of this data was queryable and I was able to answer things like:

• How many weeks did I populate my calendar?
• What is my difficulty-weighted median success percentage on my habit tracker?

As I move forward into 2022 and I continue to gather data, I’d like to identify small tweaks that will make this process more straightforward in the future.

Meditation

My meditation practice began in June 2016. That summer, I was looking for any way to get over my first breakup, and while searching for solutions to general anxiety, I stumbled upon meditation. I attempted my first sessions in Ford Motor Company’s iTek Center, where I worked for $14/hour automating data preprocessing steps. When I was tired of this (which was frequent), I’d stroll the L-shape of the building to a small coffee area and sit for 10 minutes. I was not super consistent that summer, but I was maintaining a stable 15 minute a day practice by the fall.

The most important thing I do every day is to meditate. Objectively viewing my experience and building an understanding of my mental default activity have been incredibly useful. My attention is better. My sleep is better. My ability to retain objectivity in the face of emotional distress or emergency is also greatly improved. I've found that I can connect nicely with other people who practice. I've discovered a sort of spirituality in practice - the acceptance of my human experience and a slight chuckle at the whole absurdity of it all.

My 2021 year of practice looks like this:

As detailed in the introduction, I began with the goal of meditating one hour a day for an entire year. On 5/15/21, I got drunk, stayed up late, and missed the practice. I made an effort to resume but failed. This failure coincided with my worst month of habits - June. I will reflect on this month specifically later. After this failure, I resumed a shorter but consistent practice.

The initial period of consistent hour a day sits was my most intense period of practice ever. I occasionally did long guided meditations from Sam Harris’s Waking Up app, but most often I guided myself. My practice template was inspired by The Mind Illuminated:

• 6-point Starting Review
• Intention
• Goals
• Expectation
• Posture
• Diligence
• Distractions
• Head-to-Toe Awareness Invoking Body Scan
• 10x Breath Counts
• Maintain Stable Breath Attention

Sitting for a full hour is intenser than shorter sits. Inevitably one experiences physical discomfort. Around the 40 minute mark, I experience either blissful stable attention or an immense amount of mental pain and anxiety. The positive experiences are great. My favorite manifestation of deep meditation is the casual observation of intense visual memories. While maintaining stable attention on my breath, I would observe a variety of intricate visual and auditory memory replay in my awareness. The negative experiences generally were an immense impatience. An inability to relax. Consistent periods of distraction from the breath. Worry.

I am disappointed in my failure at my one hour a day for a year goal. However, the shorter consistent practice gives me many of the benefits of the longer practice with less logistical overhead. As I go into the upcoming year, consistency is the most important thing. I’d like to ramp back up gently to an hour.

Circadian Rhythm

I started the year with an 8-4 sleep schedule. The plan was to exercise a ton before work, work a long focused day, have a touch of time for relaxing, meditate, then sleep deeply. I made the following mock calendar detailing my ideal week:

I never did this exactly, but came pretty close. In the dead of winter I’d wake at 4, stretch or do yoga, walk in the freezing dark to the gym, and return home as the sun rose. By 7:30 I was online at Citadel, fixing application issues before the market opened at 8:30. In the evening I meditated. Rinse and repeat.

Unfortunately, an early morning schedule this extreme fails to withstand the demands of socializing. Generally, the prime interaction hours for my Chicago social circle are Friday/Saturday, 8:30 to 12:30. Despite heroic efforts, I could not be a forcing factor to an earlier time. The night imbues an excitement in people. It gets the people going. And it will continue to do so, no matter how gregarious I am with my day-drinking invites.

Beyond feasibility, intrinsically I have a wild streak and love getting caught up in something socially adventurous. I am joyous when hearing or telling an engaging story. I love to be impressed by the cleverness of others. I field no complaint if I find myself in attendance as the revelry peaks. I must consider this as I continue to make decisions about my habits.

In hindsight, this winter grind feels like the seminal period of my year. The ethos of ambition that germinated this period lives on still- I've published this, haven't I? But this was a relatively short time. This period lasted 68 days. Of the 68 days, I set an intention to wake at 4 for 52 of them. Of that 52, I succeeded on 46. So For a ~2 month period, I had an 88 percent success rate at waking up around 4. On the one hand, the brevity is surprising. On the other, I am happy that even a short period of sustained effort can have a lasting impact on my perspective.

After the rise and fall of the sunrise empire, I settled into a stable 10-6 schedule. This routine allowed me to shower, meditate, and commute to work by 7:30, but necessitated that I exercise in the evening. Exercising at night carries the high opportunity cost of not stacking your endorphin boost with the day's work. But this is a small price to pay for the ability to sustain a raucous Friday/Saturday.

My near-term intention is to trend my wakeup a touch earlier to prioritize some mobility work before going to the office. The best of both worlds here is a schedule that allows me to work out before work and not be useless by 11 on the weekend. This schedule is impossible if I live in Chicago and work at Citadel since I must be online one hour before the NYSE open. Given that I retain my current position, it would be helpful to move to NYC. Switching to EST buys me an extra hour in the mornings. Mark one down in the New York category.

Regardless of the chosen schedule, the stats paint a poor picture of my ability to estimate and execute my sleep schedule. There were only five weeks in the entirety of 2021 where I succeeded in making my chosen bedtime every day. This success rate is painfully low and a significant area of improvement to focus on in 2022. I am an all-around better person when well-rested.

Fitness

In 2021 I engaged in the following fitness activities:

Running

I failed. My intention for the year was to run a lot. Instead, the year looked like this:

By ramping up slowly and utilizing some ankle strengthening exercises, I hoped to build a pain-free running routine. My approach had limited success. By the end of January I acquired both peroneal tendinitis and shin splints. To remedy this I stopped running and started stretching/strengthening my calves/tibias. After a month of this I resumed running. From 3/01/21 to 7/19/21, I set the intention to run 54 times, and ran 42 times. From 5/26 to 7/19 there were several weeks where I ran 2 miles 3 times. These were my most successful weeks of running.

By July I was succeeding at overcoming my running issues. But at the same time I began partying more and becoming less serious about my habits. I chose to deprioritize running to give myself more time to be social. I’ll explore how I feel about this later in the review.

Yoga

Though I only maintained the practice until July, this was a victory. While I was practicing, I set the intention to do yoga 52 times, and executed 49 times. Generally I did 45 minute intermediate-level classes from Anna Greenberg on the Peloton app, though I did also attend CorePower hot yoga, which I enjoyed.

As with running, I sacrificed this routine to do other things in July.

Lifting

In 2020 I biked, did yoga, and got skinny. My bodyweight was 200 pounds, which is thin for my frame. I resumed doing resistance training in 2021, and it is the area where I had the most success. I am still consistently doing this. The best description of my lift progression is:

My upper body lifts were incredible. I continue to progress fairly linearly on these. My lower body is my weak point. My central nervous system is currently built like Johnny Bravo.

From January to August, I maintained a 5/3/1 triumvirate lifting routine doing all exercises. All lifts were progressing nicely except my squat. Then, on 8/21, I pulled my hamstring squatting. It hurt to walk, even to just bend over. I had to stop deadlifting and squatting. After some rest and mobility work, I resumed squatting on 9/27 with no pain. Since then, I have worked up to squatting 5x10 twice a week at lower weights.

The timeline of the decline was:

• 06/19/21: I skip my squat day because my right glute is in pain from yoga. Immediately after, I skip a week of 5/3/1 because in NYC for Citadel the first time and then it is my birthday weekend.
• 07/03/21: I hit 5 reps only on my 5 week of 5/3/1. Continue to hit suspiciously low numbers on my workouts.
• 07/26/21: I get sick, shifting my 5/3/1 schedule.
• 08/04/21 - 08/18/21: I am on vacation. I don’t squat for an entire 14 days. Do almost no mobility work.
• 08/16/21: I do a 45 minute Peloton biking class. My right glute is bothering me a bit afterwards.
• 08/18/21: I deadlift. While deadlifting my right glute issue worsens, and my hamstring begins to bother me a bit.
• 08/21/21: I squat. There is a singular moment where my hamstring pain greatens. I can barely move without being in pain the next day.

Looking at it here the narrative is obvious - I am experiencing some glute issue early on due to overuse, mobility, or imbalance issues. I introduce some inconsistency into my routine, then have a clear warning sign of hitting low 5/3/1 rep counts. Then I get sick and take an extended break. The first week back, I ignore indicators and hurt myself. This was detrimental to my routine. Understanding how to prevent this sort of thing and improve my squat is the most critical thing to consider when making my exercise plans for 2022.

Diet

My eating habits for this year were:

I am conflicted about my diet. The deviation from calorie counting and time-restricted eating hurt my fitness. Specifically, I suspect that the change to eating out exclusively contributed to my running/yoga cessation, perhaps in a minor way to my injury in August. Awareness of my macros adds a nice 25 percent transient boost to my fitness efforts. Losing this is painful on a long time scale.

But given the office-provided food, it is highly convenient to eat there. This plan saves an amortized ~70 minutes a day, freeing time to meditate, gym, work, and play. The variability introduced by submitting to the provided meals makes it difficult to maintain discipline. My mental overhead is minimized by eating a small set of things and ensuring they are trivially measurable.

Regardless of the content, I am unhappy that I ceased sticking to time-restricted eating. If I exclusively have coffee for breakfast and retain a low level of carb consumption when I break the fast, my focus is exceptional. I find it far easier to enter a state of flow. More abstractly, there is also a feeling of intention that this introduces into my relationship with food that is very enjoyable. Time-restricted eating is something I unequivocally want to resume doing for the entirety of 2022.

Going Forward

As I place my attention on next year, I’d like to keep the four laws of behavior change from Atomic Habits in mind. The rules, and how I will embody each of them in my intention, are:

• Make it obvious.
• Consistent usage of planning methods.
• Make it attractive.
• For both the short and long term, have a clearly stated reward for all habits.
• Make it easy.
• Prefer to underpromise and overdeliver.
• Set limited time frames for big picture goals. Think in trajectory rather than accomplishment.
• Make it satisfying.
• Add pleasure/pain to your goals by social exposure or financial commitment.

Considering all of this, my goals for the 1/3/22 - 1/31/22 four week period are as follows:

Conclusion

I wrote this post from 12/20 to 12/23 while standing at my parent’s kitchen counter. It took me about 14 hours. Writing is extremely flow inducing, and I hope that formulating these thoughts into prose helped to solidify them in my head. Thank you to everybody who proofread this. Additionally, thank you to everybody who made 2021 such a fantastic year.

I’d like to make a special shoutout to my roommate Ittai Svidler and his girlfriend Meghan Cotant. Thanks for making the apartment, and to a greater extent Chicago, such an awesome place to live.

Here’s to working harder and playing better in 2022.