I’ve had a bit of fun delving into my inner self to figure out what I want to do with my life.  Not that death is just around the corner.  Partly it is to give me a sense of purpose, partly just out of interest.  I’ve surprised myself.

I’m writing it from the perspective of the me that started university, at the point that I started to know myself for the first time.

Which means I can put a few things on here that I’ve already done, so I can feel good about myself as I tick a few things off.

Here we go.

1. 1. Get a degree. DONE
   2. Get a job. DONE
   3. Get married. DONE
   4. Own a house.  I kind of do, but there is a whacking great mortgage to go with it, so that doesn’t really count.  UPDATE: Mortgage paid off a couple of years back, so now DONE.
   5. Have children. DONE
   6. Read the Bible and the Koran. DONE
   7. Accidentally slip on a banana skin. DONE Was a difficult one to achieve, ‘cause you can’t do it deliberately.  Happened outside Euston station one night on the way home from work.  How I chuckled.  Says something that it was the homeless that came to see if I was alright, even if they did ask for change when they saw I was fine.

1. Write a book.
2. Get a book published.  Makes sense at the moment – might need to revise that one in the digital age.
3. Make a leap of faith.  I.e. Find God or decide He’s not there.
4. Have a photo of a miniature I’ve painted printed in a magazine.  Yes, I still hold on to that obsession from when I was a spotty teenager.
5. Play a musical instrument, probably a violin.
6. Speak another language fluently.  Climate change jargon doesn’t count.
7. Live in an idyllic house in the country where we can live off-grid.
8. Write a list of 100 things to do before I die.  This is hard.
9. Catch a thermal under a hang-glider.  To date, I’ve only ever managed short flights or ridge soaring with ropes attached to the wing tips.
10. Parachute jump.  How I’m going to get up there without a plane I have no idea.
11. Travel round the world.  Without flying, of course.
12. Ride a bike with no hands.  I don’t mean the bike has no hands, I mean I haven’t got mine on the handlebars.  Of course.  Obvious.  UPDATE: Did this last year, before lockdown.  DONE.
13. Run a marathon. DONE Fantastic experience.
14. Swim a length under water.
15. Get pecs.
16. Go to a celebrity party.  Why on earth?  Shallow.
17. Get a scientific paper published in a reputable journal.
18. Patent an invention.
19. Start a business (not a stupid one – see http://www.onlinetaskmanagement.com). DONE
20. Sell a business.  UPDATE: Sold Bellvedi April 2019. DONE.
21. Cook a really good roast with roast potatoes like my Mum used to makes.  She still does.
22. Win the treble on Championship Manager.  DONE Did it with Cardiff in the middle of the nights while looking after Maddie when she was a baby.
23. Achieve Enlightenment.
24. Reach 100 with full use of my faculties.
25. Keep chickens.
26. Become a doctor.  Non-medical, I’m assuming.
27. Get some sort of award, like a MBE.
28. Make a will.  UPDATE: Completing that now (Dec 2020).  DONE.
29. Appear in a blockbuster film.  As an extra is fine.
30. Hit a 180. DONE
31. Become my own boss.  DONE
32. Make a pot using a turntable.
33. Walk up Ben Nevis.
34. Walk up Snowdon. DONE
35. Ascend Snowdon via Crib Goch.  Tried it once but left it much too late, and my brother was in a cast, so we sensibly turned back.
36. Learn how to chop food really fast like a chef.
37. Bake a moist, tasty fruit cake.  Maybe a Christmas cake.
38. Make a timelapse animation.  Like Morph.
39. Truly realise I don’t need to do any of these things.  Not just say so.
40. Walk my daughters down the aisle.  If that’s what they want to do.

I’ll give it a rest there.  I need to leave room for a future me to think up a few more things.

And then I found an old list I wrote a couple of years ago, where I’d only got to number 26.  But it did contain some other things that aren’t in the list above:

48. Finish The Hobbit BBC microcomputer game.  I am tempted to take this off the list, but can’t bring myself to do it.  How do you get past those pesky elves?
49. Read the full works of Shakespear.
50. Live in a house with a fireplace.
51. Learn how to plumb.
52. Learn how to do electrics.
53. Go to the Globe theatre.
54. Show a painting or picture in a gallery.

Which leads me to think of a few other things:

55. Learn how to work with wood.
56. Learn how to survive in the wilderness.
57. Teach my kids some practically useful skills.
58. This one just in.  Thank you Trevor.  Tell my son, in no uncertain terms, that he is a man, at the point that he becomes a man. And tell my daughters they are a woman.

John Bell,

Ordinary bloke