100 Things I love.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I have been thinking a lot about love this weekend. Love is the most powerful and most positive emotion in our collection. To make the most of your time on Earth you should spend as much time as you can doing things you love, with people love, in places you love.

The first step is to know what you really love. Today, take an hour to write down 100 things you love. Not only will it force you to think about your favorite people, places, and things, it will serve as a guide, and show you how to live a life you love.

Here’s what I came up with. Surely there are many more things that should be on this list that I didn’t come up with in my limited time this morning. (And I’ll stop calling you Shirley.)

100 Things I Love (in no particular order, except the first ones.)

1. My wife Dawn
2. My kids Ava, Johann and Magnus
3. My Mama, Dad and Sisters
4. The rest of my ginormous family.
5. My work
6. Sweet Tea
7. Hammocks
8. Cliff jumping
9. Road tripping
10. Vermont
11. Fishing
12. Glacier National Park
13. Boogie boarding
14. Pizza
15. Great puns
16. Snowmobiling
17. Laughing
18. Making people laugh
19. Mountain biking
20. A great church service
21. Great books
22. Weddings
23. Shawshank Redemption
24. Lobster
25. Hiking in the mountains
26. Sunrises
27. Black olives
28. Elkton, Minnesota
29. Thanksgiving
30. Stompers
31. Playing the card game Pit
32. Throwing the discus
33. Cheese curds (squeaky or fried)
34. India
35. Winning new business
36. Running into people I know in random places
37. Inside jokes
38. My best friends from high school
39. Outside voices
40. The fresh tortilla chips from the Whole Foods in Dublin, Ohio
41. Sabra Field art
42. Wisconsin Badger football games
43. Simon Pearce Glass
44. Needing 4 wheel drive
45. Montreal
46. The Art Institute of Chicago
47. Perfectly ripe pears
48. Snowfall measured in feet
49. My college track teammates
50. Hilton Head Island
51. ACDC
52. Zucker Brother’s movies
53. Canoeing
54. Game night
55. Roller coasters
56. New York strip steaks
57. Iceland
58. My Madison Hall friends in ATL
59. My funniest stories
60. Investments that paid off
61. Hearing that someone found value in something I wrote or said
62. Energizing people
63. Game of Thrones
64. Real maple syrup
65. Driving a tractor
66. The smell of roses
67. Handing out bonus checks
68. A great quote
69. The Patriots winning the Super Bowl (never gets old)
70. Flip flops
71. A great baseball cap
72. Lifting weights
73. My Dad’s Carmel Rolls
74. A Red Sox World Series win
75. Breaking Bad
76. A military flyover
77. Cheesecake
78. The grand finale at a fireworks show
79. A great performance by my kids
80. My wife’s smile
81. A great creative presentation
82. Water parks
83. Owning my own business (The Weaponry)
84. Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream
85. Discovering common friends (meaning finding out people we both know, not finding commoners and befriending them.)
86. Raincoats
87. Boots of all sorts. (Except the monkey from Dora the Explora)
88. G-Shock watches
89. Making my own t-shirts
90. Making my sisters snarf
91. The show Yellowstone (The park isn’t too shabby either.)
92. The How I Built This Podcast
93. Anything with Will Ferrell
94. American Giant hoodies
95. My Gerber tool
96. My Kraken belt buckle
97. Mount Ranier
98. Manhattan
99. Convertibles
100. Overdelivering
101. Campfires
102. People who read my blog posts all the way to the end.

Key Takeaway

Fill your life with the things you love. The people, places, activities, feelings, food, and drink you love will lead you to a life you love. And life is too short to fill with anything else.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.