THIS IS A WARNING. Do not do this. If you think I set out to code every day for a couple of years, you're wrong. What I did was ruin my mental health and nearly lose everything during this time. The pandemic shut down a part of my life, so I resorted to doing something I had already done in late 2019. I set out to do 100 days of code.

I had just been passed over for a promotion. I had fuel. At first, they said the pandemic would last a couple of weeks. Those two weeks rolled by. Then they said maybe three weeks, everything would be back to normal. It was not.

Living in Detroit during the covid pandemic was brutal. Nearly every public space was closed. Even the gyms sat empty. My habitual 3 to 4 times a week in the Anytime Fitness kept me sane after 4 days a week at the office. Now I could do neither. It didn't help that lived a 12 hour drive to my nearest family in a 1 bedroom apartment on the edge of town.

My life was just picking up. After my business flamed and I had to move home, I stopped taking new clients and started looking for a real job. I had several interviews before I landed a full time gig in november 2019. I bought a 2014 ford escape and moved all my stuff from storage into my flat 6 weeks before everything shut down. During this time, I did my first 100 days of code. I remember finding time before every night to edge just a hair closer to my dreams. I thought just a bit more each day would be the trick to building wealth.

I must admit I was dumb. I shouldn't have been obsessing about some contribution streak when my life was just beginning. I was overworking myself for next to no reason. So after I hit the 100 days, I stopped working on projects to focus on the new full time role.

THIS IS A WARNING. Doing something in a spurt is great, but making that streak your identity won't change who you are within. Sigh. Before I tried to run my own firm, I was the guy that posted at work on social media. I was geeked to be a representative of the company that employed me. There was no need to be that green. Soon I would learn the value of dollar.

Like an idiot, I quit my golden handcuffs job to do full time coding with a couple of clients. I would soon get more but only really be able to deliver a couple a projects. Waiting to get paid for delivery let me starving.

I moved from Indianapolis to Detroit bumming it in my girlfriend's basement before eventually sleeping in the whip most nights. All I could afford was AT&T, 4 for 4s, and Anytime Fitness. One day, I was down to $1.10. I had just enough to get a mcchicken. The next morning, I rode through the drivethrough counting my change. I go to the window where they said a different price then I was expecting.

They said the price went up to $1.30. I looked for nearly 5 minutes for a nicket that I knew I didn't have. So I pulled off... starving. It was then I stopped reading tutorials. I stopped working on projects that weren't paid for. Only then did I tell my client that was waiting for me to finish something I overpromised that I was over bandwidth and couldn't work on it without more pay. I finally sucked it up and moved back home.

It didn't make me happy but I was no longer hungry. My parents were happy to have me off the streets. My mind felt like it was torn in two. Instead of feeling bad, I felt like the prodigal son. It was weird that I genuinely felt proud to have sleep in my car for a few weeks.

THIS IS A WARNING. You only live once. Don't think that experiencing something painful makes you so special. It makes you experienced. Putting myself through 1001 days of code was torture at some points. More than anything it was an ego trip caused by external events. I never thought I would turn 100 days of code into something somehow unwise.

I made nearly everything about getting a little better every day just because the world slowed down. Okay those are my warnings. This is not a tutorial on what to do on 1001 days of code. It's a offering of what I learned about life and work during this time. Please the see the diagram below.

1. Tier 1 - Self-Actualization
2. Tier 2 - Profession (Work and Education)
3. Tier 3 - Persona (Family, Friends, and Community)
4. Tier 4 - Health (Spirit, Mind, Body, and Finances)