These are six of my biggest priorities for 2024. Some are holdovers from last year’s list, and most focus on building healthy habits instead of crossing items off the bucket list.
1. SFG I StrongFirst Kettlebell Certification
The SFG I is StrongFirst’s flagship kettlebell certification, which requires me to master the basic foundational movements — swing, double clean, press, double front squat, snatch, and get-up — and pass a kettlebell snatch test: 100 reps (50 each arm) in 5 minutes. I may not be able to pass the certification test by the end of the year, but my goal is to make solid progress towards it and look to complete in early 2025.
2. Train for violence
This is a holdover from 2023. I’m reading books on the topic, joining a gym, and doing other stuff in the hopes of being prepared and developing the strategy and skills to better protect myself and my family.
3. Go into the wilderness alone
I will start at Segment 22, where I left off last year, and backpack the remaining segments of the Colorado Trail.
4. Write every day
This yearly aspirational goal will shift more toward journaling.
5. Memorize things
Another holdover from 2023, I aim to expand this practice and commit to memory something new — be it a poem, quote, song, or excerpt from a book — every month.
6. Reading list
- Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training & Real World Violence, by Sgt. Rory Miller (Finished)
- Live Ready: A Guide to Protecting Yourself in an Uncertain World, by Sam Rosenberg (In process)
- The Little Black Book of Violence: What Every Young Man Needs to Know about Fighting, by Lawrence A. Kane and Kris Wilder
- On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
- Night, by Elie Wiesel
- Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, by Robert M. Sapolsky
- Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
- Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, by Abigail Shrier
- The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order, by Rush Doshi
- Watership Down, by Richard Adams
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