26 posts for 2026
An arbitrary numbers-based challenge hates to see me coming.
Two years ago, at a dinner party I hosted, I gave my guests the following prompt: “When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grow up?” When it came my turn to respond, I surprised myself by saying out loud: “A writer.”
Wow, I hadn’t had that thought in decades.
When I was a child growing up in Nigeria, I inhaled everything that was written on paper around the house — newspapers, dictionaries, church pamphlets, Enid Blyton books, my mom’s old Reader’s Digest magazines. I hand-wrote plotless, meandering stories in my notebooks. I fantasized about someday making movies based on my highly successful multi-series novels with huge devoted fan followings. When I was sixteen and applying to colleges in the US, I decided I would major in English and try to become a writer. My father, an electrical engineer, quickly laughed me out of the room. “I’m not sending you abroad to study English,” he stated, as if it were obvious. “You can be a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. Study English on the side.” So I majored in Electrical Engineering instead. I wrote intermittently on a semi-anonymous blog all through college and stopped when I started working on Wall Street.
Well, I don’t work there anymore. I’m no longer beholden to those silly FINRA rules around disclosing and pre-clearing all of your outside activities. I can write whatever I want.
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Except… I haven’t… not quite.
I keep saying I want to write more. I signed up for a writing course at The Center for Fiction in Downtown Brooklyn. I lament to my writer friends about feeling stuck and not knowing where to start or how to continue. I lament to my batchmates at the Recurse Center about wanting to lean more (moar!) into my creative and whimsical side. I lament to anyone who will listen about my struggle with my time management — ever since I quit my job last February, time seems to have melded and become one big, sloppy, soupy soup. Summer flies by while I travel around Europe. Fall passes as I ride my bike around Seattle and NYC and Montreal. Winter comes around and it feels like all I do is blink and the sun has already set.
I want to write, I think. But when? How? What?
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The other day I had a thought. I’ll set a goal! I’ll write 26 posts for 2026!! A-ha!
I can write about anything! I’ll try my hand at short stories! Maybe I’ll take my daily check-ins at the Recurse Center and convert them to blog posts. Maybe the writing class will make us write some short stories of our own and I won’t die of cringe before posting them here.
Hey, here’s a post right now. And it’s 2026. That’s 1 down, 25 to go!
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What is it about slapping a number on something that seems to supply the motivation I’m somehow otherwise lacking?
You know, I don’t really know. My friend Shannon reminded me the other day about the year she and I decided to do a new 30-day challenge every month. I’d been inspired by Matt Cutts’ now famous TED talk about trying something new for 30 days. I’m not really sure why that video resonated so much with me, but I liked the idea of making myself stick with something for a continuous, predefined set of time. I used a simple tracker app, and I’m slightly ashamed to say the dopamine kick got me. It gave me the juice to keep going.
That February, I decided I would exercise every day for 30 days. I started by going to the gym just to use the elliptical machine and do some weak planks and mat work. Some days were honestly just 15 minutes of movement, but it checked the box so hey. I kept it up for 28 days; then March 1st came around and I thought, why not — I’ll just keep it going. Winter turned to spring, and I started running along the East Side River every other day or so. Fourteen months later, in May 2014, I raced my first ever 10k, Nike’s We Own The Night. Three years later, I completed my first triathlon, the Chicago SuperSprint.
Did I mention that prior to February 2013, I had not run even a mile since I was a sophomore in high school? Did I tell you I didn’t even know how to swim before April 2017?
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Well, there we go. I’ll publish at least 26 blog posts this year, I think. What about? Can I do it? What happens when life gets too busy?
Ahh! I don’t know! I guess we’ll see! 😃