This one was on a blog that got deleted. Found a copy of the text and archiving it here.

When I turned 30, my birthday motto was Higher highs and lower lows.

When I turned 31, my birthday motto was Double down.

When I turned 32, my birthday motto was No problem.

Each year, the motto has helped me frame the upcoming year and give it some kind of direction. Those three mottos are pretty much a table of contents of my 30s so far.

Today I turn 33, and I the motto for this year is going to be “Frugal to the max”. I’m starting a new company, we’re planning to start a new family, and I think it’s time for the essentials of life to come into sharp focus.

Last night I woke up around 5am and did my usual iPhone surfing from bed, but nothing was happening (other than Dita Von Teese returning from Paris). So I sat there and had this strange realization of the shortness of life. To be able to sit in bed, with an exciting day ahead, with the love of my life right next to me, while we are young, full of energy and ideas, hopeful, excited, and the world seems to be in sync with our goals and hopes – it’s a snapshot of time that I truly appreciate. I laid awake and savored everything that I have right now, and promised not to let it slip by without being fully appreciated.

Turning frugal is how I’m going to appreciate. And from what I can tell from people who I’ve talked with this about, it seems like we’re all interested in getting back to basics and truly savoring the essentials of life: love, friendship, health, quality time, creativity, sustainability, balance, and sense of self.

Tonight I celebrate with friends, tomorrow I start something new.

The Way Back Machine has a copy of this original post.

I have been interested in self-tracking ever since I started posting links to the Internet in 2002, when I attached a + or a – to each link depending on its impact on my morale. It turns out, whatever makes me want to post a link to something also tends to impact my morale in a positive way, and so my first Morale-O-Meter almost always showed my morale as 10 (tracking the last 10 links posted).

Later, around 2005, I started a more general Morale-O-Meter that allowed me to rate my morale each day from 1-10. In addition, I also counted the number of alcoholic drinks and caffienated drinks I had, the number of hours of sleep, and my general “health” (1-10, 10 being healthiest). It created a graph that looked something like this:

The coincidence of this graph was that all of the inputs could be displayed on the same 1-10 scale, and so it tended to make it easy to believe that the inputs could in some way be correlated. After doing this for about 3 years though, except for minor correlations between number of alcoholic drinks and amount of sleep, there were no deep insights.

I eventually opened this up to anyone who wanted to track along these same 4 axes, which was mildly successful and interesting, but I never really wholly supported the idea because for some reason I didn’t think that these particular numbers were going to ever lead to an epiphany.

The reason I am obsessed with self-tracking is because I think there is …

The theme of my 30th birthday, and the following year, was Higher highs and lower lows.

The theme of my 31st birthday, and the following year, was Double down. Double down on love, on friends, and on my projects.

This year, I feel like I should shift the focus a bit. Not so much about building building building, and more about enjoying what has been built and what happens to exist. This is a big deal for me cause I almost always feel like I’m not doing enough. That I have to keep being more ambitious, thinking bigger, not getting too lax lest I fall into a rut, etc.

Just as a reminder to myself, I’m gonna re-post my “unified theory of enjoyable living” which I started putting together in January of 2007 and have been adding to and editing since then:

I. IN A NUTSHELL

1. It’s not what you do, but how you do it

2. It’s not what happens to you, but which qualities it brings out in you

3. Do unto yourself and others always with your best judgment

4. Pursue shared enjoyment

II. PREPARATION

5. Don’t dilly dally

6. Don’t feel sorry for yourself

7. Exercise, eat healthy, and manage stress

8. Dress and appear as your best self

9. Strive to know yourself

10. Tell people about yourself

11. Appreciate your different energy levels and moods

12. Notice body language

13. Keep your word

14. Be the change you want to see in the world

15. Harness the ability to focus your attention

16. Be a beacon of strength

III. EXECUTION

17. Try to have good intentions

18. Be the …

I had the best birthday weekend ever. All of you are amazing. I love you. Best friends ever, best ideas ever, best dance moves ever, best three and four-layer pyramids ever, best falling over ever, best eyeliner ever, best champagne ever, best ass slapping ever, best tongue ever, best cheerleading ever, best long distance romance ever, best fortress of pillows ever, best sparkly glasses ever, best blasted broccoli ever, best donuts in a bag ever, best universe of possibilities ever, best zest ever, best prom photoset ever, best photographers ever, best everything in the universe ever really. I really do want to double down on friends, love, and becoming a better, kinder, sillier, person. Life could be as simple as that I think.

More pictures from Andy, Kristen, and the photobooth here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kristent/archives/date-posted/2007/05/28/ http://flickr.com/photos/smull/archives/date-taken/2007/05/27/ http://flickr.com/photos/smull/archives/date-taken/2007/05/28/ http://flickr.com/photos/mcleodphotobooth/sets/72157600283731292/with/517552968/

I am having such a great weekend (okay, it’s Wednesday but I took Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off and feel like the lines between weeks and ends are only a formality lately anyway… all work is play and playing right is work). With everyone in town (lele, terrajen, enmicropedias and Michelle, Giao, and many others for LBJ and Rick’s wedding) and Seattle people coming out of the winter woodwork I think this weekend is going to serve as a launching pad of ideas and actions that will sail us all through the next couple years at least.

Thanks to Daniel and Reggie for inventing some awesome music on the spot (the audio of which was captured by Josh S). Thanks to Vladimir the Polar Bear who gave a great motivational speech (SO FAR!) and sang some wonderful songs (including an improved song about probability and foxes… ideas that she got from the audience) (did anyone catch this on audio or video?). And THANK YOU to everyone who gave 1-minute speeches or subjected themselves to interviews (I want to make a list of everyone that spoke on stage at all, I’ll post the full list later) or baked bacon cakes (thanks mizrobot!) or baked dump cakes (thanks yeswad!) or ate easy cheese or helped with the raffle or wore tuxes or wore wigs or modelled the t-shirts or took pictures or drowned in paddle boats on the way or drank drinks or simply laughed hysterically and cried uncontrollably at the higher highs and the lower lows. Life is uncanny and magical and everyone can help make it even more so for everybody else. I had a wonderful time and hope you did too.

See all the pictures that have been uploaded so far on flickr.