I want to start with something I've been thinking about for a while.
there's a specific kind of person who has a running list in their head of things they want to do. places they want to go, things they want to try, experiences they keep saying they'll get to eventually. and then months pass and they look up and none of it happened. the list just lives in their head, getting longer, never shrinking.
I think this is most people. and I surprisingly think the reason doesn’t boil down to laziness or lack of desire. the gap between wanting to do something and actually doing it is almost entirely an activation energy problem. you need something specific to act on. "do something interesting this weekend" is not actionable. "go to the restaurant on your block you've walked past a hundred times" is.
I've been obsessed with this problem for a while now.
some background on me. I'm 22, I graduated college almost two years ago, and I start med school at the end of July. I grew up in a strict Nigerian household where the entire focus was academics up till I graduated high school. straight A's, extracurriculars that looked good on paper, shadowing, volunteering, all of it pointed toward one goal. I was good at it. I got into a great program. and I also look back at those years and feel like I was so focused on performing the right life that I forgot to actually have one.
so the moment I had real freedom (when I left home for college) I went the other direction. I've done things that would have seemed completely out of reach a few years ago (solo traveled across asia at 20, went skydiving on a whim, etc etc etc). and what I noticed every single time was that the catalyst was always something specific. a specific idea. a specific prompt. a specific moment where I thought "I could actually do that today" and just went.
that's the whole philosophy behind sidekix.
sidekix is an app where people post sidequest ideas (specific things to go do) and share the adventures they go on. when you post an idea and someone goes and does it, you get credited on their post. there's also a personal home screen that's entirely yours (saved ideas, a want to try list, stuff you've already done) that I’ve been using that’s been super helpful for me to keep track of what I wanna do next despite being one of the only people on the app so far.
the honest state of it: it's small, like really small. genuinely just getting started. I’m trying to form an actual community around this way of thinking right now and that's actually why I'm posting.
the part of this that I keep coming back to is that we're in this weird cultural moment where "living intentionally" has become an aesthetic rather than a practice. there's an entire genre of content about romanticizing your life, being present, doing things on purpose and almost none of it shows you actually doing anything. it's all the vibe of an interesting life, consumed passively while lying in bed. I find that genuinely funny and also a little sad.
sidekix is the version of this that requires you to do something. you can't just save an inspo video and feel like you've engaged with it. you have to go actually do the thing and then come back and tell people what happened. that accountability is built into the structure.
I'm also building this as someone who is about to enter a relatively demanding career path. med school, residency, the whole pipeline. I'm very aware that the window for spontaneous living is going to narrow significantly. and I refuse to be someone who keeps deferring the interesting parts of life until some future point when things settle down, because in my situation that point is a very long way away.
I think a lot of people in demanding programs, demanding jobs, demanding life stages feel this way and don't have a place to put it.
that's the community I want to build. people who are actively choosing to make their lives more interesting despite whatever else is going on. people who have good ideas for things others should go do and want to share them. people who want to be around others who think this way.
if that's you, or if you know someone it sounds like, I'd genuinely love to connect. the app is called sidekix and it's free.
and if you have thoughts on the concept, the intention I'm describing, or anything else, drop them here. I'm still building this and I pay attention to everything.