27

My life seems to pass in four year increments: I attended four years of elementary school, four years of middle school, four years of high school, and managed to graduate college in four years. 26 marked the close of my four years since graduating college and entering the workforce in 2016. Every four years brings new experiences, new challenges, and new friends, so with optimism I write about what I want the next four years to bring.

Let's see how I did this year. My previous year’s resolutions:

1. Increase net worth by 50% over the next two years
• I got lucky on this - so lucky that I am 3 years early to achieving my goal. Shortly after the corona virus took a foothold in Italy and shook the markets, I saw my stocks tank. I held on and invested almost all my bank savings into a variety of indexes and stocks near the bottom of the curve. Then the market rallied and my holdings expanded from 48% of target to 95%. Tech stocks especially soared, and since my portfolio is majority tech stocks, my finances greatly expanded. At the time of publishing, I have already surpassed my 30 year net worth goal. This gives me three years of flexibility to do things I would have put off on, such as attending university again or taking up a job based on my interests over pay.
2. Run a half marathon in 120min
• I did not even attempt this. I don’t consider this a loss, however. Ironically, I got pretty fit between the months of March and September as the lockdown allowed me to set an exercise routine. I exercised daily in April and 3 times a week for the other months. Therefore, about the end of summer age 26 is probably the most fit I have been in my 20s.
• I’ll be setting this goal again
3. Score a 5/165/165 on the GRE
• I did not attempt the GRE due to work and no plan to attend studies in 2021. I will be considering it for 2022 if I choose to apply to universities in the US.
4. Have a blast at Coachella 2020
• There was no Coachella 2020, and likely there will be no Coachella 2021 - likely postponed until April 2022. I am wishfully thinking that the first Coachella in 2 years will be awesome. Something about delayed gratification.
5. Visit a new country or place, with my girlfriend and/or with my family
• I visited Sanya with my girlfriend during Thanksgiving. This is a very acceptable achievement given the state of travel in 2020. Many of my friends and coworkers have not left the state let alone their country. I was able to leave the country twice under special conditions related to my work.
6. Promotion in my current role
• I got a 27% TC raise compared to my TC last year, which was great. However no promotion was granted so I am looking to move on to another company or team if I still get no promotion by September.
7. Learning: finish these courses/books:
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python - finished 77%. This blogpost is a good reminder to finish the remaining 23%.
• Factory Physics - finished most of the pertinent contents. Am away from the textbook currently, but will continue reading it as reference material.
• Become certified in something - I started my six sigma training. The class is near inaccessible in China, but have been able to progress about a third of the way. I am planning to take the LSSBB black belt test in August.
• Overall, I would consider this a half-win. I started all three but did not finish. I did finish reading a couple books: The Signal and the Noise, now working on Persuasion and the biography of Benjamin Franklin.
8. Interview with at least 3 prospective companies
• I interviewed with Tesla and got a job offer. I turned it down as goodwill to my team, as this team is running too lean even with the current resources. Facebook also reached out to me to fill a very similar role to my current one. Both companies offered a higher TC than what I currently make. I had wondered what I would be able to get if I quit my current job, and now I know, and now I am confident I will have a place to go when that happens.

For my next four years, I am starting off by asking myself these questions "woop" style:

Self improvement

• What skills do I want to get better at?
• Languages (Chinese and Japanese)
• Memorization
• Persuasion
• What are my obstacles?
• Motivation
• Time
• How do I overcome these obstacles to achieve my goal?
• Plan a daily and weekly routine, and stick to it
• Motivate myself to like doing challenging things during my free time

Place of living

• Where do I want to live?
• With my girlfriend
• In a metropolitan area with high economic activity
• What are my obstacles?
• Restrictions on my girlfriend for living outside of her home country
• My place of work
• How do I overcome these obstacles to achieve my goal?
• Study, work visa, or marriage
• Quit my job or relocate

Hobbies

• What do I want to do for fun?
• Sports
• Explore flexible and multi-material designs
• What are my obstacles?
• Time
• Community
• 3D printer
• How do I overcome these obstacles to achieve my goal?
• Find a sporting community
• Schedule time for sports activities like I did for airsofting when I was 24
• Buy a 3D printer and make time for learning and making 3D prints
• Change my mindset: do "challenging" fun instead of "braindead" fun:
• Study Chinese instead of watching Youtube videos
• Play memorization games instead of point-and-shoot games
• Join a community to engage in philosophical, financial, and economic discussions

Mindset change (write more on this later):

• Be "industrial" as Benjamin Franklin would put it
• What is being industrial? Find and do activities which are productive for society while doing good for yourself

6/28 Edit:

I wrote this post back in 3/28 and published it on 6/28.

1/3/22 Edit:

I left the post without being super clear on my resolutions. Here they are:

1. Hit my 30 year net worth goal
2. Get promoted with 25% pay increase
3. Achieve Chinese HSK1
4. Be able to read a Japanese newspaper
5. Score a 5/165/165 on the GRE
6. Run a 10K in 60min
7. Run a half marathon in 120min
8. Play soccer every weekend
9. Create a personal website to publish engineering, design, and photography articles - this is the Benjamin Franklin part of it: write frequently. And as soon as you learn something, turn around to teach it.
10. Find a plan to be with my girlfriend in a metropolitan area