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A short history of my life’s high-impact events

1976: Born in Newport Beach, California
1986: Turned 10
1992: Briefly owned a Ford Mustang convertible, before totaling it
1993: My father passed away
1994: Graduated high school
1994: One year at UC Berkeley
1995: Moved to Seattle, Washington
1998: Graduated from UW
1998: Hired at Amazon.com to answer phones at night
2000: Transferred to Amazon web developer position
2000: Got married
2000: Launched Seattle Stories (now gone)
2001: Launched Nervousness (sold in 2002 for $400)
2002: Launched All Consuming (sold in 2005 for $5,000)
2002: Wrote Man Versus Himself
2003: Transferred to Amazon product manager position
2003: Wrote Disaster
2003: Web developer again
2004: Got divorced
2004: Quit Amazon
2004: Co-founded The Robot Co-op
2004: Bought a loft
2005: Launched 43 Things
2006: Co-founded McLeod Residence (closed in 2008)
2008: Married Kellianne
2009: Started Enjoymentland
2009: Launched Locavore
2009: Quit the Robot Co-op
2009: Kellianne gets pregnant
2010: Launched 750 Words

Coming soon:
2010: Son is born

Would be interesting to dig deeper into these 30ish events to see how they relate to one another:

  • Which ones were intentional, versus accidental?
  • Which ones had high immediate impact, which had high long-term impact?
  • Which one had intended consequences versus unintended consequences?
  • Which things am I proud of, which am I ashamed of?

Another thing to consider, as I am currently 33 years old, how many more things will be on this list?  I started this list in 2005 (it was the bio on an old Typepad account), and only just now updated it to include the last 7 things.  Will the list continue to include about 1 item per year?  Will I add things to the past that I don’t currently know are high-impact events?  Will I remove things?

Does it do any good to reduce life life this?

This entry was posted by Buster on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 10:28 pm. It is filed under Random thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Responses to “A short history of my life’s high-impact events”

  1. Like all westerners, you strive to “identify the active ingredient”. In this case, to render down your life into these few words. The long-running TV series “Law & Order” excels in reducing people and events into their keywords, and that’s an undeniable part of it’s appeal. (A geekier example would be D&D)

    This is useful in the right context. Consider the immense complexities required for an army to cooperate. The way to deal with that complexity is to reduce people to a single keyword, called “rank”. Consider the difficulties of choosing a mate: the keywords on internet dating sites are useful (gender, income, location, political party, etc).

    The question is: in which context would this list be useful? To whom? For what?

  2. Also, Disqus would be nice.

  3. [...] got this idea from BusterBenson – I think that this will be a very interesting list to add to in years to come. Posted by [...]

  4. I got married in 2000 and divorced in 2004 too. LOL. But I can honestly say I will stay unmarried forever, although I do believe in it, if it works.

  5. It’s interesting to me that you have a list like this Buster.

    What do you think is the value of keeping the list up-to-date? Does having the list simply build up your ego when you need it to, or is there a goal in mind for the list – one you possibly don’t know about yourself, but are hoping for?

    I imagine the internet makes it easier to have/manage lists like this. Stick it up on some Amazon servers somewhere and you’re fairly likely to have it again in 10 years.

  6. Hm, good question. I think I need lists like this in order to feel like I’m making progress. That there’s a long road that we’re all on and that we don’t have to panic if it feels like things are not moving. There’s a consistency of direction that I feel when I think about the list and I don’t worry as much about the smaller dramas and events that are happening right now. Maybe it is good for my ego to review the past also.

  7. Um you forgot:
    1978 Awesome little sister was born
    2003 Awesome little neice was born
    Just kiddin :)
    I guess those things would only be on my list – I would make one but I think it’s be rather short, sadly.

  8. whoa! i just wanted to thank you (retroactively) for creating nervousness. i didn’t know you’d done that (i am a 750 words user who just found your blog in the patrons section). nervousness was so amazing and brought more joy and mail-borne wonderment and magic into my life once-upon-a-time than i can do justice to here. its demise is still something i view as being one of the greatest losses of the internet. seriously. and 43 things also rocked my world. and 750 words has gotten me writing regularly for the first time in a long time. thank you for creating such inspiring tools for fostering creativity and community on the web!

  9. Buster, I love this personal history list…going to do one myself. Thanks for the inspiration!

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