Eric's Epic Quest of Awesome!
About a month back I discovered Steve Kamb's Epic Quest of Awesome on his site, Nerd Fitness. Their slogan: "level up your life, every single day". His idea? Convert your life into a role playing game, and level up yourself by doing interesting things and accomplishing your goals! Brilliant! Ever since I saw it I knew that I wanted to do something similar for my life. This is the post where I reveal what I've been up to.
Of course, I want to change a few things about how he does it. First, I think he over values travel by making each item of travel worth 20% of an entire level. Especially when he splits the travel up, like he did for Paris (where he did three things each worth 20%!). So I'm making more flexible leveling up: most things are worth only 10%, but some are worth 20%, 50% or 100% depending my judgement of how important it is/was. And for travel I do a lot more lumping, basically I'll count an entire trip as 10%, unless something really important happened - and that gets it's own entry, rather than counting in the "visit" itself. Even so, I've five times awarded myself an entire level for something I accomplished; I feel each of those was worthy of at least an entire level, most represented years of work.
Basically I want the levels to more accurately reflect actual growth as a person... and that also means that it's hard to judge in advance, or even immediately after, how important an event or experience will be. So I won't be updating this monthly or anything like that - though perhaps more often than yearly. I've deliberately left off the things I've done in the past few months, since I don't feel ready to judge them yet. Even so, you'll notice that the list has me leveling up more often recently than in the distant past. There is the possibility that this is just selective memory at work, but on deep consideration, I've decided that this is probably accurate: I do feel like I've grown more as a person in the last three years than in any other three year period in my life.
One other thing I decided on as well, was that I would include more personal victories, often reflecting accomplishments involving relationships or health issues or psychological issues. To preserve my privacy and the privacy of the other people who may have been involved, these events are not detailed but merely listed as (private). I know this will be frustrating for readers, but I feel that it's better than neglecting these important events in my life completely. Plus, MY copy of this table spells it all out :-)
Anyway, without further ado, here's my New Years resolution this year: to work towards becoming at least a level or two higher on Eric's Epic Quest of Awesome!
Currently I'm Level 18.
Level 1: 10 (private): Sept 1998 20 (private): 1996-1999 10 go skydiving: Oct 1999 10 (private): June 2000 10 visit MIT Media Lab in Boston: June 2000 10 visit Mexico / Gulf of California / Phoenix: June 2000 20 fly to California for ? conference, interview: Sept 2000 20 work for a .com: javien.com, Oct 2000 Level 2: 10 attend Extro5 conference: Sept 2001 20 cofound a .com: stumbleupon.com: Oct 2001 10 visit Seoul South Korea: May 2002 10 (private): Sept 2002 10 (private): Oct 2002 10 attended CUTC conference: Jan 2003 20 (private): Jan 2003 Level 3: 100 get an undergrad degree: Engineering: Applied Mathematics, mechanical option with Professional Internship, 2003. Also, get Iron Ring. Level 4: 50 Live, Work & Travel Europe: summer 2003, including London, Oxford, Paris, Geneva, Berlin, Amsterdam, Brussels; living in Delft 10 visit Las Vegas: Jan 2004, 10 visit San Francisco: March 2004 10 (private): spring 2004 10 visit Muir Woods: March 2004 10 visit Yosemite: April 2004 Level 5: 100 live in Silicon Valley & work at high-tech startup jetalon.com: 2003-2008 Level 6: 100 (private): spring 2004 Level 7: 10 visit Hoover Dam: April 2004 10 (private): April 2004 10 see Wired NextFest: May 2004 10 watch Space Ship One first launch: June 2004 10 visit Disney Land: Sept 2004 10 visit San Diego: Sept 2004 10 visit Napa Valley: June 2005 20 launch personal website: digitalcrusader.ca, June 2005 10 see the inside of a semi-conductor fab: 2005 Level 8: 100 get a black belt in kung-fu: Chinese Shao-lin Center San Jose, April 2006. 2nd degree black belt, summer 2008. Level 9: 20 pay off all student loan debt (becoming debt free): ~2006 20 maintain community garden plot: 2005, 2006, 2007 10 tour Ontario/Quebec, including Niagara Falls, Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto : June 2006 10 cruise SF Bay: Oct 2006 (again in 2007, 2008) 10 visit Hawaii: Feb 2007, May 2009 10 be interviewed for a podcast: C-realm Podcast Episode 34 (and many more), May 2007 20 Tour China: June 2007, including Hong Kong, Beijing, several martial arts sites. April & May 2009: add Shanghai. Oct & Nov 2009: with noisebridge Level 10: 100 have >$100k in net assets: June 2007 Level 11: 10 attend 10 year high school reunion: June 2007 10 visit Grand Canyon: Aug 2007 20 get a patent: "Method for a liquid chemical concentration analysis system", United States Patent 7,268,864, Sept 2007 10 attend Foresight Institute Unconference: Nov 2007 10 visit Universal Studios: Nov 2007 10 attend Detroit Auto Show: Jan 2008 50 (private): Spring 2008 Level 12: 10 visit New York: March 2008 50 get a style makeover, like on Beauty and the Geek: April 2008 10 attend Maker Faire: May 2008, May 2009, May 2010, May 2011 10 move to San Francisco: Sept 2008 Level 13: 50 attend Burning Man: Aug & Sept 2008, Aug & Sept 2009 20 (private): Sept 2008 10 attend Singularity Summit: Oct 2008 10 attend Quantified Self meetup #2: Oct 2008 20 give a public talk in front of >25 people: Future Salon on X Prize Cars, Jan 2009 Level 14>: 10 be a member of a hackerspace: noisebridge, Feb 2009 10 (private): winter 2009 10 (private): March 2009 20 make & use haptic compass: May 2009 10 attend Fusion Retreat: July 2009 10 sell electronic kits online: North Paw, Sept 2009 10 start my own business: sensebridge, Sept 2009 10 attend BIL2010, including tour of OKGO Rube-Goldberg Machine: Feb 2010 Level 15: 10 attend Freezing Woman gathering: March 2010 10 attend Chic Meets Geek: June 2010 10 relaunch personal website: digitalcrusader.ca, June 2010 10 visit Portland, Seattle & Vancouver: June 2010 10 drive across Canada: July 2010 10 visit many hackerspaces, make hackerspaces scrapbook: July 2010 10 visit Ireland: Aug 2010 10 move to Toronto: Sept 2010 10 Sci '00 10 year reunion: Sept 2010 10 Halloween Cruise w/ Wizard Costume: Oct 2010 Level 16: 10 be interviewed for internet news site: themarknews, Oct 2010 10 sell electronic products online: Heart Spark, Oct 2010 20 lead workshops at hacklab: starting fall 2010 10 become internet known (>10k hits for something I do): Heart Spark video, Dec 2010 20 be a trustee for Toronto Awesome Foundation: Jan 2011 20 build a huge Rube Goldberg Machine: Jan 2011 20 (private): winter 2011 Level 17: 10 run a meetup group: Quantified Self Toronto, March 2011 20 lead a team during a hackathon: Train Overlord, April 2011 10 be interviewed for radio: CBC Spark #149, May 2011 20 get paid to give a public talk in front of >200 people: Quantified Self Conference, May 2011 10 (private): June 2011 10 become president of a hackerspace: hacklab.to, June 24th, 2011 10 lead a guerilla gardeners plot: June 2011 Level 18: in progress!! Future Goals: Travel: visit Tokyo visit Rio de Janeiro - see Carnival visit Rome visit Prague visit Moscow visit Venice visit Copenhagen visit Saint Peterberg visit Mumbai visit Taiwan visit Singapore visit New Zealand go through / see the Panama Canal visit the south of France visit Cuba visit Dubai visit Cairo and the Pyramids visit Chichen Itza visit Vatican visit C-base & Chaos Computer Club in Germany do an African Safari General: read life changing books attend CCC conference in Germany play Deus Ex: human revolution write & publish a book create a fashion photography blog ride in an airship (e.g. airshipventures.com) build a quadcopter products, doing workshops, consulting, etc. have a great home to host house parties at become internet famous (>100k hits for something I do) become internet celebrity (>1M hits for something I do) get a master degree get a PhD become conversational in Mandarin Chinese read Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese give a public talk in front of >1000 people weigh a healthy 165 pounds (or more) live & work in China be strong: bench 1x, squat 1.5x, deadlift 2x body weight using mood tracking software/apps organize a big "free day" at hacklab get a great mentor have a whole line (>=5) of electronic jewelry products sell electronic jewelry in retail spaces or through other online venues start a Future Salon and/or Long Now meetup group launch a cyborg electronics contest with $1k prize Financial: make a living (>$30k/year after tax income) doing wearables - selling kits / consulting / etc. have >$1M in assets have >$10M in assets get accounting software going for my business (not spreadsheet!) Private and/or Confidential (NDA): (private) (private) (private) (private) (private) (private)Eric's Epic Quest of Awesome was first created in January 2012. It was most recently updated Jan 9th, 2012.
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