These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Alright, posted the first short a few hours ago. Looks like we haven’t gotten much of a response yet. That’s fine. I expect it will be one of those things that feels like a slow grind, but then you look up several months later and realize you’ve made significant progress.
2
Bought an Apple Watch the other day. I was carrying my phone everywhere with me, mainly to keep track of my steps. Seemed silly. I have the watch on airplane mode all the time and sync/charge it once a day. Handy for other stuff as well, like timers, alarms, heart rate tracking, etc.
3
We have an accounting firm doing our taxes here. Checked the filing they’re about to submit, several mistakes in there. A good reminder that we can never 100% rely on a third party to look after our finances. We’ll always have to check their work. Same deal when it comes to health.
4
There’s a YouTube channel called Border Security, showing Australian customs catching people smuggling drugs. One guy today had $600k of cocaine in his stomach, was paid $4000 to be a mule. Now he’s spending 6 years in prison. Not a bad guy. Just desperate and uneducated.
5
These videos I’m doing have injected a nice dose of creativity into my work. Much of my day-to-day had become monotonous, more manager than maker. Scripting and recording the videos has been enjoyable so far, energizing. Woke up this morning looking forward to another session.
6
Creeping along the edge of this mountain in a Suzuki Jimny, dense fog, thunder and lightning. We stop to google the consequences of the car getting struck. Not too bad. But we turn back anyway, end up cruising around a fancy neighborhood, marveling at the big houses.
7
No checkpoints here, it’s an old smuggler’s route between Andorra and Spain. The Jimny can just about handle the unpaved road, with some hairy moments through mud and across rivers. We meet more horses than people, pass by a little church that might be 700 years old, the surrounding village long gone.
8
He’s gotta be in his 60’s, long grey hair in a pony tail, rolling down the street in a three-wheeled electric wheelchair, two dogs trotting along beside him, Hit Me Baby One More Time blaring from a speaker.
9
I’ll be wearing this continuous glucose monitor for a couple of weeks, stuck into the back of my arm, connects to an app on my phone, shows my blood sugar level at any given moment. Apparently it’d be good to get it below 100 before bed. I’m at 116 with an hour to go.
10
From The Stranger by Albert Camus…
Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living—and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. At that point, what would disturb my train of thought was the terrifying leap I would feel my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of life ahead of me. But I simply had to stifle it by imagining what I’d be thinking in twenty years when it would all come down to the same thing anyway. Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.
11
Choose a prompt: what’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done; or what makes you different from most people. Tempted to answer the second with the testicle thing, chicken out, then sound like I’m boasting with my answer to the first.
12
Mad how the first ~15 years of your life hold massive sway over the rest of it. Even if we lived for 1000 years, I suspect that would still be the case. I’ll always have that shy kid inside me, with an urge to follow the rules and not upset anyone.
13
In situations like this, where I’m stuck in a conversation with someone I don’t particularly like, my tendency is to be nice and polite but not encourage the conversation too much, hope they get the message. But perhaps it’s better to be a bit rude, make that message much clearer.
14
Memories of New Orleans in 2010, being there when the Saints won the Super Bowl after decades of heartbreak. Best place in the world to be right then. As an Irishman I’m contractually obligated to root against England but it’d be cool to see them win the Euros while I’m in London.
15
8:30 on a Monday morning in London, took a walk around the Blackfriars area, seeing all the 9-to-5ers heading in to start another week and not looking too happy about it. I’ve been my own boss for so long now I often take the freedom and flexibility for granted.
16
London was good, but didn’t give me the same buzz as last year. Doubt I’ll go again in 2025. It’s a hectic week before, a hectic few days there, then a hectic week after catching up on things. Plus, the trip cost me about $2500 in all. I reckon I can spend my time and money better elsewhere.
17
Hit a wall today, had to take a nap and go out for a walk after. Headed up to an abandoned barn in the woods overlooking the village, ate a snack, looked at the view. On the way back by the river, lots of kids playing on the new beach.
18
Just watched Labyrinth for the first time. Not a great movie, but it reminded me of David Bowie’s lifespan: 1947-2016. Born right after WW2 in a rich country, died before Brexit and Trump, and a celebrated musical genius to boot. If I had to trade a lifetime with anyone, Bowie’s would be high on my list.
19
I need to be careful with these new videos. If they don’t take off, the smart thing would be to either abandon the idea or try some crazy experiments, shake up the format until I hit a home run. But often I just keep doing the same thing for a long time even if it’s not working great.
20
Spent most of today working on one thing, clocked 5+ hours on it. Made good progress, but there was a nagging voice in my head, reminding me of all the other things I could be working on. Always a trade off between making big progress in one direction, or a little progress in many.
21
Good writing is having something to say then putting the words in the right order. Good business is having value to deliver then putting the atoms (or pixels) in the right order.
22
Been working on a database of all the stories I’ve featured in the newsletter over the years. More than 1500 of them. Putting them in a nice interface with proper tags so it’s easy to browse and filter. Should be a good resource for finding business ideas and inspiration.
23
Talking with a friend about my business. He reckons the newsletter is too text heavy, could use more visual elements. He’s probably right. At the very least, I should test out some different layouts, see what the response is like. I’ve been doing it the same way for too long.
24
14 years self-employed, and I still tend to over-complicate things. Working on something today, started off way too idealistic, wasted a couple of hours before I came to my senses and made it much simpler. Not sure I’ll ever default to that, just the way I’m wired.
25
“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
That quote resonates with me and yet I’m scared of ending up as an ordinary man.
26
Thinking back 20 years, student in college, living in an apartment with a few other lads. We had music blasting all day, would hang out in the square playing keepy-uppy, the ball often bouncing off parked cars. There was no bad in us but man, our poor neighbors. We were oblivious.
27
Listening to a podcast about Munchausen Syndrome. Scary shit, especially the “by proxy” version, where someone makes their kid sick on purpose. Sounds like people with the syndrome are just born that way. I reckon that’s the case with many a bad egg.
28
You’d think more people would be talking about these self-driving taxis in the US. Total game changer, can’t wait until they’re in Europe. Fast forward a generation and I expect very few people will learn how to drive. Same way very few people grow their own food nowadays.
29
Prime example of Google’s ridiculousness: #1 result for “wealthy affiliate review” is a Reddit post I wrote 5 years ago. That’s ahead of the far more up-to-date and comprehensive WA review on my site, which includes 40 reviews from actual students. So dumb.
30
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Marriage might be like that. You leave the simplicity of being single, embrace the complexity of relationship, and hope to someday arrive at a better kind of simplicity.
31
It all comes down to energy levels for me these days. Felt sluggish yesterday, work was a chore, not a great day. Felt much better today, work was enjoyable, gave the day a 9 out of 10 on the contentedness scale. It’s usually pretty apparent in the morning what my energy levels are like, what kind of day it’s going to be.