I don’t remember since when, exactly, but I’ve had this article saved in my Instapaper account for a long time, but never really got around to reading it. Once I finally did, I wondered how I could have missed it for so long and how much I admire this woman for her persistence.
The article is about a man who meets a woman named, simply “Zora”. He interviews her and talks to her at length about her rather unique profession and life style. Apparently, as a child, she had dreamed a dream about a fantastic woman – a superhero – and decided that this is who she wanted to grow up to be. The article continues:
Zora took the dreams seriously, so seriously that at the age of 12, she sat down and composed a list of some 30 skills she needed to learn if she wanted to become as close to a superhero as any mortal could be. She even gave herself a deadline: to master these skills by the time she was 23. Zora pulls out the old spiral notebook that was her diary at the age of 13, and turns to the inside back cover.
“Yep, there’s the list. The list included martial arts, electronics, chemistry, metaphysics, hang gliding, helicopter and airplane flying, mountain climbing, survival …”
Throughout her teens and 20′s, each time she started a new diary, she would update the list and write it in the back of the book. Each one with the same format, each one titled The List.
It’s so simple, really. If you know what you want to have; if you know who you want to be; if you know where you want to be – why don’t you write your own list of all the things that have to happen for you to get there? Then make sure to check these things off one by one as you get closer to your dream life.
Here’s an exercise for you: Write down a couple of sentences – no more than ten – describing what you want your life to be like. Be as extravagant as your sense of imagination allows you to be. Write down what you do for health, who you surround yourself with, what you do for money, how you spend your days, etc. Then write down everything you can think of that would bring you from your current life to this new life. If you’re (amongst other things) a vegetarian tennis player who enjoys swimming and surfing in your dream life, but today you’re an overweight meat-eater that gets winded by watching tennis on TV; you will have to break things down into many steps to get where you want to be – so write them all down and check them off one by one as you get there!
Your dream life is closer than you think; all you need is a dream and a plan for how to get there.


Tomorrow is my birthday. It’s not a major one, but I’m getting one year closer to the big three-oh. That’s right, readers, I’m turning twenty-nine. If you’re reading this east of England, I’m already 29 at the time this is posted, thanks to the wonders of time zones. At the age of twenty-nine, Albert Einstein had already published four major texts. Alexander the Great had conquered all of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and was moving into Persia. Leonardo Da Vinci had already painted the Annunciation (Pictured to the right). What do I have to show for myself so far?