30 Before 30

I originally thought about making this a video, but then I thought that it felt more like a blog post because I found myself rambling in my mind when I thought about it. Plus, I wanted to explain a few of the things and compare it with what I thought I wanted to do when I when I was a little younger.  So, here is my list of 30 things I want to do before I am 30.

1. Live in another state for at least a year. 
2. Live in a foreign country for at least 6 months. 
3. Find a job/career/position that I am actually happy with.
4. Visit a total of 20 countries.
5. Read all the books that I own.
6. Run a marathon.
7. Become fluent in two other languages.
8. Travel to the west coast. 
9. Revisit Egypt. 
10. Contribute to either a book that is published or a TV show script that gets aired. 
11. Go SCUBA diving. 
12. Learn how to surf. 
13. Go skiing. 
14. Go ice skating. 
15. Meet J.K. Rowling. 
16. Watch a MLB game in 5 different stadiums. 
17. Go to the Olympics
18. Go to the World Cup. 
19. Hike the Lord of the Rings trail in New Zealand. 
20. Meet the President.
21. See the Northern Lights. 
22. Take a road trip across America. 
23. Watch every Oscar winner for Best Picture. 
24. Have awesome abs/a six pack (even if it's for a day). 
25. Go see Saturday night Live live. 
26. Meet Tina Fey.
27. Be Tina Fey (this one might be tricky). 
28. Be part of and/or create a viral video. 
29. Go to the San Diego Comic Con. 
30. See The Starry Night

Many of my goals involved traveling of some sort. In fact, 15 of the 30 would require me to travel to another place for the thing to happen. I realize that they probably will not all happen because traveling requires money and I do not quite know how much income I will have in the next seven years, but I like to have them as something to look forward to. Of course, there are a few things that I will attempt to prioritize before I get too old, such as hiking in New Zealand, because I don't think I would be up to doing some of these things when I am 50. 

Still, I feel that this is a list that will not really change between now and when I turn 30, which is a big change from 5 years ago. I did not quite make a list like this when I was 18 years old and just starting college, but I remember the way I thought then and I am pretty sure my list would have looked something like: 1. Be a doctor. 2. Be married. 3. Travel a lot. I am not completely discounting becoming a doctor, I just know that if I do go down that path, I don't want it to be during my 20s. There is now way that I will be married by the time I am 30. The traveling part is the same though. Although, it does not seem realistic with those other two goals as they would take up all of my time that it would be almost impossible to travel often until I was much older. 

It feels strange when I think back on 18 year old me. A lot of things have happened to me over the past year, but I never felt myself change from day to day. And I think that is the biggest thing about changing as a person. You don't really wake up one morning and say, "gee I've changed a lot since yesterday." A lot of times, I feel like I am not progressing in anyway. I am not learning or improving myself because I do not see a difference from on day to the next. Obviously, that is not an accurate way to measure myself as I can see a huge difference over the course of several years. 

So maybe my list will change before I turn 30. Or maybe it won't. There's no way to know for sure and I think that's a good thing.