I could say something like “Hi, my name is Charlee. I am 40 years old and I live in Missouri,” but I feel like that would be a bit too bland. I have a thousand different thoughts in my head, but as usual, introductory paragraphs are my weak point. Instead, let’s talk for a moment about how I’m feeling currently. For the past couple of years, I have felt a burning desire to curate my ideal life and I don’t mean a million-dollar house with acres of land (although that would be nice). I mean more like the type of skills I’d like to have and what my routines look like whether it’s daily or yearly, personal or professional. What do I want my own little slice of life to look like? If I took a snapshot of my ideal self, what does she look like? What hobbies and/or skills does she have? What kind of air does she have about her? I’m not going to lie, I wish I would have started this earlier in my life and I definitely feel the anxiety of things being “too late,” but I try to remind myself that, outside of biological things, there is no “too late.”
A little bit of background is in order before I dive into that. I grew up in a very small, poor town in rural Ohio. I couldn’t wait to get started with band in 5th grade, which I kept up with through my freshman year of college. I was one of those students who could pick up almost anything easily. I’m not going to say I didn’t work hard at some things (remembering long evenings of my mom drilling me on biology), but, generally speaking, things came easily to me. I chose a small, liberal arts college that was located in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio and had intended to pursue an English degree. That was until my first days of the Fall term. I had signed up for a Greek philosophy course because I had always been interested in the ancient Greeks and fell in love with the discipline. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I didn’t change my major, I just added a second one to it. I graduated with Honors in both.
For a time, I struggled with what I wanted as a career and to this day I think it is insane to ask someone who is 18-22 years old to decide what they want to do for the rest of their life. Again, I probably could have gone into anything I wanted, but choosing was the hardest part. I’m well aware of the privilege in those words, but the honest truth is I’ve always had a diverse set of interests. It was when I had worked for a bank that I realized that I loved reconciling things since it exercised my critical thinking and logic skills and that accounting might be a good fit. Skipping forward, I graduated with my master’s in accounting at the end of 2012 but always made sure that I took advantage of my time back in college to take non-accounting classes relevant to my interests. Since then, I have had several jobs in the field across a few different industries and have done well enough for myself.
That brings us to the present for the most part without getting too far into the weeds of my adult life for an introductory blog post. I’m sure we’ll get more into that in coming posts. While I have had a great life so far, I feel like there’s so much more I could have been doing. Time that is now lost to me that could have been spent learning more. There’s a quote from a song that has always stuck with me. The band Incubus has been one of my favorites for a long time and the song is called “Warning.” Here are a few of the lyrics:
She woke in the morning
She knew that her life had passed her by
And she called out a warning
Don’t ever let life pass you by.
I never want to be that girl. I don’t want to be the one who realized life had passed her by and all I can do is warn others not to do the same.
So what does that look like for me? What do I need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen? I feel as though my list keeps growing as new things pop up and it’s time to actively start doing something about it. Let’s get the list out of the way shall we?
- Obtaining my CPA license
- Diving deeper into certain disciplines that also have a professional benefit
- Economics
- Strategy
- Accounting & regulatory matters for utilities
- Learning to draw and get into digital art
- Learning artistic tools such as Blender and Unreal Engine
- Reading a ton of books
- Writing essays and critically engaging with topics
- Creating a beautiful, productive garden
- Learning to play the violin to the point where I can maybe participate in an orchestra
- Leaning more heavily into my spiritual practice
- Becoming good at tarot reading
- Becoming a knowledgeable herbalist
- Cooking more from scratch and preserving food
- Making a dent in the backlog of video games I want to play
- Getting into Warhammer and/or D&D
- Doing daily yoga and meditation
- Overall, being healthier
It’s an ambitious list I think, but achievable. If I look at my ideal future self, I think she is a person who gets an early, slow start to the day. She gets up, does yoga and meditates before coming downstairs to feed the dogs. She goes outside and peacefully tends to a large garden before going back inside to work on some art for a short time. Then, at work,
she is a well-educated, well-respected employee who is at a director level at her peak. She might have a master’s or PhD in economics. On her off-hours, she spends her time with her husband and dogs while reading books or playing games, or whatever she happens to desire to do that evening. Maybe there’s a side hustle that involves digital art or herbalism or orchestra. She lives in tune with the seasons and with nature. She writes occasionally and is always expanding her knowledge. She has a peaceful, rich, full life.
I will say that I have started working on this list. I obtained my CPA license this year even through working full-time, moving states, getting engaged, and buying a house. That is the accomplishment I am trying to lean on as motivation. If you are familiar with the CPA exams, you’ll know it’s no small feat. I’m one to downplay my own accomplishments, so I say that also as a reminder to myself. I have been reading a lot since completing the exams and my reading list is constantly growing. I purchased a violin last week which arrived yesterday and am actively looking for instruction. One of my fiancé’s friends’ mom is a musician who plays gigs in the area and is often asked to play for various traveling shows as they pass through. My hope is to find someone through that connection, but there is also a studio nearby that offers lessons. Maybe one day I can be like her and get asked to play at performances.
That all brings us to the purpose of this blog. I want this to serve as record of my personal journey as well as provide some public version of accountability. I’m open to feedback and comments and maybe there are others of you out there who are also trying to curate your ideal life. I would love to build community here, but I’ll admit that I’m terrible at self-promotion and marketing. Other things I plan on adding to this site are essays I write and book reviews. I think essay writing can be a beneficial and important tool for processing and diving deeper into topics. Maybe I can write my first one about the benefits of being a polymath or the benefits of leaning into the “struggle” or the “friction” of learning. For the book reviews section, I think I may do a singular “catch-up” post for the books I’ve read recently and then going forward post ones that are a little bit more critical. My projected posting cadence for this blog is weekly on Sunday mornings. I’d like to go into more depth about a lot of things mentioned in this introduction as well as my progress on the list. If there are specific areas you’d like me to talk about more, I’m happy to do so. I feel, however, that it’s important for me to keep an introduction relatively short. With that, I hope that this reaches others and that you come back to see what I’m up to in the coming weeks and months.
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