2026 Goals

A totally normal living room containing only a few minor goals for the year.

Are they really year goals if you post them halfway through the year? I wrote these goals in December and then somehow it became June before I found time to flesh them out. In my defense, it’s been a crazy year to be me and also for anyone in tech, especially at Meta. On the plus side, I can show some intermediate progress on these goals.

Joint Goals

• Remodel a house. We have plans for our house, and when I set these goals earlier in the year it seemed like this would be possible to do. However, with the general instability we might hold off a year on that major project. Instead, we might remodel my mom’s house to make it easier for her to age in place there. Everything is TBD.
• Go to 6 comedy shows. Cat and I love live comedy. It’s great to do things that we love together. We’ve been to three shows this year, so we’re on track.
• Perform at an open mic standup night. I’ve done this once, and I really enjoyed it. Cat’s also hilarious. It would be fun to do this together.

Kids

• Pravin has an outlet for his academic interests. We’re making progress here. Pravin will be shifting schools, so that might help. But we also have a math tutor for him. We’ll see how that plays out. There are other interventions I can think of, but he’s old enough that we should probably make them collaboratively.
• Leela reads chapter books. Leela reads now, and she can read chapter books.
• Pravin can make dinner. We got a couple of cookbooks for him and he’s been pretty stoked about them.
• Leela takes pictures for our picture wall. When I wrote this she was really into taking pictures, but I’m not sure if she still is. That said, I think it’s worth keeping it on just in case.
• Pravin and Leela can type. This was on last year’s list for Pravin. I thought I’d revisit for this year. The world may be full of voice input and touchscreens, but typing still feels like one of those necessities.

Personal

• Book a family India trip. I think the kids have reached an age where this makes sense. It doesn’t have to be this year, but we should book it this year.
• Two friend trips and two family trips. This has become a staple. We’ve already taken a trip to NYC which covers both.

Physical

• Do a set of 10 pull-ups. All my progress here disappeared and I’d like to get it back.
• Hold a 30-second handstand. Same with pull-ups. These rotators are killing me.
• Reduce body fat by 5%. I think this is possible but I need to track my diet more. I might have to gain some fat before cutting down. We’ll see.
• Increase straddle width by 30 degrees. We have measurements here, but I’m a bit concerned about hips.
• Decrease split height by 4”. Same as above.

Cultural

• Read 26 books. According to Goodreads, I’m two books behind schedule.
• Finish 3 previously purchased video games. Tsundoku (積ん読) is the Japanese word for acquiring books and letting them pile up unread. I’ve got the same problem but for video games. (I’ve also got the problem for books, board games, and other things, but that’s beside the point.) Over the years I’ve purchased games that are games of the year, genre-defining, or visually stunning. Often these games take tens or hundreds of hours to complete. This year I wanna finish some of those games that I’ve bought.

Creative

• Build something physical. Inspired by Adrien. I’m already making progress on one of these things.
• Update my website and blog. This is done. You’re probably looking at this on my website. I still wanna make some changes to style and to content. But so far, I’m pretty happy with where things are.
• Write 2 blog posts outside these goal posts. It’s halfway through the year and I thought I’d at least get one of these done. But at this point it’s unlikely to happen.