IMPOSSIBLE LIST
Ever since my teenage years, I’ve always been fantasizing about my future, writing elaborate lists of all the things I wanted to accomplish. Needless to say, I never got around to any of it (except maybe a few minor goals). In due time, my dreams and hopes changed until there came a point where I felt like I had changed course so many times that I was still standing in one place.
Enter the impossible list, something I came across in a video by Thomas Frank, although the idea comes from Joel Runyon. There was something inherently appealing in an impossible list for me, and I’ve had one for the past couple of years. And before any of you asks: no, the impossible list is not a bucket list. The impossible list evolves and it implores you to take action now rather than waiting for that one day that never comes.
Please note that this list is extremely personal (it took me years to finally publish it, after all), but I want it to be a public reminder for me to stay on course.
Professional
- create a personal web page (you’re reading it)
- start a blog (April 30th, 2020; check it out)
- get my PhD degree (May 13th, 2021)
- have a current content publication as main author (February 18, 2022; you can read it here)
- have a paper published in a Q3 journal at least (as main author)
- create a web platform where people can develop skills using deliberate practice
- be employed by a professional football club
Selflessness
- aid a hundred students in getting a university degree
- give a TED talk
- help a hundred people to restart their lives
Creative & Arts
- write a novel
- publish a novel
- publish a book
- publish a comic book
- perform on stage with a favorite band
- compose an original work and publish it
- play the Moonlight sonata on piano
- play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 arranged for piano by Liszt
- play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor on piano
Fitness
run 1 kilometer in under 4 minutes(August 2, 2023 in 3:56)run a 5K(September 2nd, 2019)run a 10K(August 28th, 2021)run a half marathon(November 6th, 2021)run a half marathon without almost dying in the process(ran an official half-marathon on May 15, 2022 in 02:06:39; definitely did not die)run a half-marathon in under 2 hours(1:57:11 on April 23, 2023; 1:50:11 on May 14, 2023)- run a half-marathon in under 1.5 hours
- run a marathon
- run an ultramarathon
- do 100 push-ups in one set
- do 100 sit-ups in one set
- take a photo of my six pack
- touch my toes
Travel
- live in five countries for at least ninety days
SlovakiaJapan(May 17th, 2018 – August 15th, 2018)
- travel down the Oslo – Bergen line
- see the aurora borealis
- go stargazing in the Australian Outback
- events to attend
- Super Bowl
- UEFA Champions League final
- DFB Cup final
- Revierderby home game
- any football game in Wembley
Skills
- skateboarding at a competent level
- perfect pitch
Languages
- pass a C2 English exam (December 6th 2018)
- learn German at a level where I’m confused for a native speaker
- learn Norwegian
- learn Italian
- learn Welsh
Life experience challenges
- go a month without television
- go a month without alcohol (June 22nd – July 22nd 2018)
- do a month-long digital declutter
thirty days without added sugar(May 2021)- meditate for at least 10 minutes every day for a month (October 2019)