First Anniversary of this newsletter.

It has been one hell of a year.

Everyone make a wish.

Too Early Old, Too Late Smart is going to blow its candle out. It just turned one-year-old today.

We truly live in the golden age of the cake decorative arts.

Well, let us see where we stand after a year. This screencap will show us the goals that I set forth to accomplish last year:

Looking at this list makes my stomach hurt.

Let us go through them one by one and talk about the progress that I have made.

1. Learn to play guitar with enough mastery to play complete songs by ear.

Though I have not met this goal, I am a better guitar player than I was when I started last year. This has been the most frustrating challenge by far. I am not sure what to do to get myself over the hump with this one. I probably need to take some lessons from a human being, but I will need to wait until post-COVID for that. I just don’t think that a Zoom lesson is going to do the trick.

2. Write a song, then perform it, accompanying myself on guitar at a musical open mic.

This goal seems hilariously from another time. Imagine going to a musical open mic during a pandemic. It’s laughable. That said, I remain committed to writing a song. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I have not really worked on this challenge, but it is one that I feel will be a lot of fun once I commit to it. I honestly don’t know why I have so little to show for this challenge, other than feeling stymied by my guitar progress.

3. Write three feature-length screenplays.

I made this goal gigantic in hopes that I would have at least one completed script by today. Instead, I have three very incomplete screenplays and a lot of useless shame that I’ve been carrying around because I have not finished one. This is where I need to give myself a reality check—no one will live or die because I have not written these screenplays. I am not a professional screenwriter. I am only slightly above the rankest amateur. There should be no pressure to produce or perform at a professional level. I just need to write something. Something shitty, but something that is finished. This is so much easier said than done. I will never give this goal up. It is the most important one on the list. Please don’t give up on me.

4. Design and code a game/app.

I have a piece of software that will allow me to design and build a complete game with only minimal coding. So why have I not completed this task? Because it is a lot of work—way more than I can really wrap my head around. Hundreds and hundreds of hours. Is it doable? I’m not even sure. Do I still want to do it? Yes, I do.

This challenge has been very humbling. I have always thought that if I had the time that I would be able to learn to code. I have had the time, but as soon as things get remotely difficult, I quit. The curse of the gifted child. If I’m not immediately good at something, I give up. This blog was supposed to be about me changing these patterns in my life, but it seems like they have instead become ossified. I probably need to move on to the next challenge before I get too bummed out.

5. Finish a century bike ride.

When I can ride a bike without a panic attack, I will try this one again.

6. Start a profitable at-home business.

This one is daunting. I sincerely have no idea what to do. I have no head for business at all. I have scrabbled together a motley assortment of mostly useless skills over the years, and I have no idea how to make money with any of them. I realize that I am being overly gloomy, but in this economy, I have no idea how to be otherwise. We’ll table this goal for further discussion.

7. Do 100 push-ups.

This goal is not really something I feel like pursuing any further. I just want to make sure that I have movement in my life. Right now that is taking daily walks. Who knows what it might be tomorrow?

8. Do 10 pull-ups.

See above.

9. Produce and distribute a completed web series.

This one is still being worked on, and I even have others working on it with me. We are writing segments, figuring out budgets, and other logistical issues. There’s just this pesky global pandemic that is keeping us from getting this show on the (literal) road. I am actually very excited about this challenge. This one is going to go the distance—I can feel it.

10. Learn how to draw well. From life and from imagination.

Although I am not an expert artist by now, I do feel that this was the most satisfying and rewarding challenge. I actually got better at something! And I will continue to improve. This may take me a few more months or even years to truly complete, but I feel as though I have made an excellent start. This one feels very close to being a win.

My friend Paige is a talented artist and this drawing of a crested crane was her favorite. I like it as well.

My plans are to change up the way I approach the challenges. Last year I tried to just kind of work on them all at once without focusing strongly on any one task. This was clearly not the most effective method. Live and learn, right? So, I have decided to take one month at a time to really focus on each task at first. I will slowly fold them all back in together as the year unfolds. I could not decide which task to work on first, so I let the fates decide. The fates being a random decision maker that I found online. I put the active challenges into the form and it turned it into a wheel of fortune that will determine what is the challenge that I concentrate fully on next.

PickerWheel dot com will make all of my most important decisions from now on.

Here is what the fates decided for October:

I swear that this is what the random caprice of the universe picked.

This is the order for the rest of the challenges:

November: Write three screenplays

December: Design and code app/game

January: Start a profitable home business

February: Produce and distribute a web series

March: Learn guitar

April: Write a song.

We’ll see how this goes. Will it work? Maybe. Do I hope that it does? Yes, I do.

Zero challenges out of ten completed. Do I feel like a failure? Yes. More than my baseline feelings of being a failure?

No.

I feel like I accomplished something very important this last year. I made this blog. Through a pandemic and multiple bouts of depression and anxiety, I wrote seventy posts that I think are pretty darn good writing. Definitely, the best that I have ever written. I have made connections with people all over the world who like what I write. This newsletter has strengthened friendships and ties with my family.

Some lovely people have even written to tell me that my newsletter has helped them during rough times. This makes me feel like I have done something far more important than learning how to play a barre chord. It has not always been easy or consistent, but I have plugged away at it trying my best to entertain and enlighten y’all. Thanks for sticking with me.

Shameless money-grubbing:

Please consider subscribing or donating to the blog. There is a 20% special on subscriptions for this month, just use the button below the links. My PayPal is below if you just want to put a coin in the tip jar.

No one should feel obligated to spend a penny to read my thoughts, but thank you so much to those who have and will do so in the future.

Bedbug update:

The exterminator, Josh, came and sprayed the absolute shit out of our living room on Saturday. Let’s hope that he got them all. Our belongings remain encased in plastic, and half of our furniture is still sitting in the middle of the rooms for at least seven to ten more days. May October be the month when normalcy returns to North Richmond Street.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Drop me a line: jeremydnichols@toolatesmart.org

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