The Best Sh*t of 2022

Hello friends, and welcome back to Life Reimagined, a free elixir designed to make your life more enjoyable.

With 2022 coming to an end, I wanted to share some of the highlights from this year across work, life, books, and more.

I'll be taking off the rest of this month to focus on writing my book and spending time with family. I hope you have a relaxing rest of 2022.

Before we dive in, if you're someone who likes to set annual goals, here's the process I've used for the last four years:

Blog

I started calvinrosser.com and this newsletter 5 years ago to help 10 million people live a more fulfilling life. There is still a lot more I want to do, but I'm excited by the reach and impact the blog now has after half a decade of tinkering. A few encouraging numbers:

• 606,458 people read the blog this year (vs. 428,544 in 2021).

• 4,600 people read this newsletter (up from 3,560 at the start of the year).

• In 2022, I awarded scholarships to 20 students and helped 100+ other people create their own scholarships.

While I spent most of the year trying (and failing) to write my first book, I was able to publish some new articles. Some of the most popular pieces:

• Defying Cultural Gravity

• 40 Unconventional Pieces Of Advice That Most People Ignore

• It’s Time To Leave The Casino

• Musing On Living A Long, Vibrant, And Productive Life

• Losing Someone You Love: 10 Lessons For Overcoming Grief

Finally, while the blog lost money during the first three years, it has made money over the last two years. I now have eight sources of revenue (up from six at the beginning of the year).

Podcast

Steph and I launched the Sh*t You Don’t Learn in School Podcast in 2021 to help people learn important skills for being happy, productive, and healthy adults. Over the last year, our episodes have been listened to over 152,839 times, which is a great start.

Some of the most popular episodes from this year:

• The Life You Could Have Lived: A discussion about the importance of exploring the diversity of jobs out there and how many people become fixed in a singular path.

• Deciding Where to Live: A discussion about how to think about where you should live, why it matters more than you think, and how you can make a decision when it involves two people who have different desires from a location.

• Money and Relationships: Steph and I share how we deal with and think about money in our relationship, including our current working philosophy on money and stories about the things we struggle with and are still working on.

• Life Lessons You Shouldn’t Ignore: A discussion about the few pieces of advice that can have an outsized positive impact on your life.

Books

I read a lot fewer books this year than I have in prior years. I don't know why, but I struggled to find books that reshaped my thinking and did not finish most of the 40 books I tried to read. That said, I still found a few gems:

• Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived by Peter Barton: This is probably my favorite book of the year. It's the beautiful tale of Peter Barton, a successful businessman and life enthusiast. The shares the story of Peter’s life, alongside his process of dying from stomach cancer.

• Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor: A wonderfully told story that explores the wonders and mysteries of the ocean through a journalist's journey in the world of freediving.

• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: I read a lot of Hemingway this year, but this was one of my favorites. It's a memoir of Hemingway's time in Paris after WW1.

• What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte: A wonderful audio series discussing how to navigate times of transition and the muddy boundaries between the physical and spiritual world.

• Old Books. I also re-read many books that have captured my spirit in the past, including Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

Experiences

If I did only one thing well this year, it was spending a ton of time focusing on rewarding life experiences. That time often came at the expense of productive work and my career, but it was a worthwhile trade for this period of life. Some highlights:

• Getting married. For most of my life, I did not know if I would get married (discussed in Does Marriage, Retirement, or the 40-Hour Work Week Still Make Sense?). But earlier this year, Steph and I decided to tie the knot in Las Vegas. It was a super rewarding and fun experience, and I'm excited to continue learning how to be a good partner over the next few decades.

• Coaching Middle School Golf. I had a lot of free time this year and decided to volunteer as a middle school golf coach. The experience rekindled my love for the game of golf and was an enjoyable way to engage with my community and hopefully help some kids along the way.

• Rediscovering my love for travel. From 2017-2020, I traveled to over 30 countries as a digital nomad. But when the pandemic hit, I decided to move to California and lost the desire to wander the world. This year, I spent more than 50% of my time on the road. Steph and I went to Nicaragua, Bali, Singapore, Canada, and a dozen cities across the US. I also made it back to Burning Man.

• Mastery in surfing. I've channeled most of my ambition into becoming a better surfer over the last three years. It's been a tough, but rewarding journey that I hope to write about someday. This year, my surfing journey took me to many waves around the world that I've always dreamed of surfing. It also led me to learn how to freedive and swim with sharks in the open ocean in Hawaii.

• Couple's Therapy. Steph and I found an amazing therapist who has helped us smooth the bumps in our relationship. I've worked with therapists and coaches individually in the past, but this new practice has reminded me of the value of finding someone who can help you in the domains of life that you care most about.

Products & Services

Consumerism got the best of me this year. While most of the stuff I bought did not have any lasting impact on my wellbeing, a few products did stand out.

• Breville Espresso Machine: I love coffee, and deciding to invest in a high-quality espresso machine was definitely worth it. I now make lattes at home all the time, and it's totally worth it. I have the Breville Barista Touch. For beans, I go to a local coffee shop and buy anything that was roasted in the last 2 weeks.

• Badger Sunscreen and other products: I learned that a lot of popular sunscreens have unnecessary chemicals that can harm you and the ocean. In my freediving course, the instructor put me onto Badger products, most of which have very simple, clean ingredient lists. I've really enjoyed the clear zinc sunscreen for my face and the after-sun balm for rehydrating my skin after a lot of sun exposure.

• Polaroid Camera: I've started bringing a Polaroid camera on trips, and it's been a lot of fun. It's nice to have a physical copy of photos, and it's also a great way to give a gift to other people. At weddings and other places, I'd take polaroids and gift them to people. I have the Fujifilm Instax Mini 11, and it's great.

• Health Products and Services: Reshaping my beliefs and health habits was my main focus for the year. I shared everything I learned in this article, including very helpful discoveries like Active Release Therapy, products that improved my sleep, and services that helped me understand and improve the overall health of my body.

That's it for this week. See you in 2023! 🥳

— Cal

If you liked this piece, make sure to subscribe by adding your email below!

🌎 Three other things you might enjoy

1. Doing Time Right: Everyone wants to get more done in less time. This course will show you exactly how to do that with the eliminate, automate, delegate, and iterate framework.

2. Foundations Looking for good books to read? Check out Foundations, a growing digital notebook with notes & lessons from 100+ timeless books.

3. Listen to the Podcast: Feel like school didn't prepare you for adulthood? The Sh*t You Don't Learn in School podcast exists to help make up for this societal failure.