30 Before 30 – The What

Drum roll please…

Here is the list of things I’ve decided I must get through before May 3rd, 2013.  Each challenge is something that will either force me to grow in some way, or that is just so damn fun I should have done it AGES ago. There are also five challenges that I’ve asked my friends to set me, and five challenges I’m doing for more selfless reasons.

Ten for growth

• Skydive
• Ask a guy (stranger) for his number
• Write a short story and enter it into a competition
• Do a drama workshop
• Go horse riding
• Have a travel or wellbeing article published in a major international publication
• Go on a blind date
• Learn Spanish
• Visit Singapore
• Take cookery classes

Ten for fun

• Go to the airport and catch the next flight out – to wherever!
• Gate crash a wedding
• Party nonstop for 24 hours
• Learn how to make (proper) cocktails
• Sing karaoke (sober)
• Do another photography workshop
• Party in New York, New York…
• Learn how to tango
• Kiss a South American
• Learn how to DJ

Five for my friends

• Go for a week without the internet
• Quit alcohol for a month
• Babysit
• Eat snails
• Wear an abaya for the weekend

Five for selfless reasons

• Make a difference to someone’s life
• Raise awareness of a good cause
• Take part in fundraising
• Spend a completely selfless day
• Forgive and forget

So, any thoughts? Do you all think I’m crazy yet?

In my next post I’ll be writing a little bit about why I have chosen each one.

30 Before 30 – The Why

Hello and welcome,

As you may have gathered by the highly original title of this blog, I have decided to challenge myself to complete 30 different tasks before I turn 30 in 20 months time. From launching myself out of a plane to gate crashing a wedding, I will be ticking off a list of exciting, challenging and downright stupid things that I’ve decided I MUST do before May 3^rd, 2013.

So, why am I doing this?

Before you assume anything, this isn’t just some distraction I’ve created because I fear turning 30. In fact, unlike most people who dread the prospect of the first number of their age changing from a two to a three, I’m actually looking forward to it. For one, I am enjoying the wisdom I seem to be acquiring as the years roll by, whereby I find myself smugly saying things like: “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt” and “Ah, yes, when I was your age I thought the same,” while giving people a knowing, judicious look. Plus, with each day that passes, I give even less of a shit about things than I did before, so I figure that by the time I turn 30 little will rattle my zen cage. Brilliant!

What I do fear, however, is another twenty months passing me by, as I live day-by-day as a capitalist robot (i.e. half brain-washed and half delirious), without having accomplished a never-ending list of stuff I keep intending to do “someday.”  I do not fear becoming old. I fear becoming boring.

I’ve never been one to sit back and let life pass me by, so I figure it’s about time I got off my ever expanding white ass and do the things I’ve been intending to do since my early twenties. We’re not getting any younger, you know!

The reasoning behind launching a blog to go with the challenge is simple. As a writer I work well when I have two things: an audience and a deadline. So I’m hoping that a) writing about it will be as enjoyable as the experiences themselves b) my readers will spur me on as I contemplate eating snails or asking some random guy for his number and c) the journalist in me will make sure I stick to the deadline.

So: 20 months to go. 30 challenges to get through.

30, ready or not, here I come!