All the worry floating around in the public consciousness around Turning 30 was always so confusing to me. I didn’t get it. It felt like a meme. Like everyone was afraid of the concept of 30; because everyone older than you had also been afraid of turning 30.

Whenever I asked friends about it, why they got chills even coming to the realization that we were no longer in our mid-twenties but now in our late-twenties (meaning: almost 30), the answer was always something vague and unsatisfying like “I don’t want to be 30” or “then I’ll be old” or “life ends at 30”.

It was a mind virus, one I refused to believe in and prided myself on being resistant to. 30 was just another year of being on this earth, 1 more than 29, which was 1 more than 28, etc.

Sure, there are physical debuffs you start to notice around ~25 that continue to get worse over time. It’s harder to get out of bed, like physically get up. I actually need to stretch before working out. One time I kinked my own neck in the shower using my loofah.

(One actually-serious consideration here is the biological pressure and its associated emotional and social pressure on women interested in having kids as you approach 30 and beyond. Maybe this is a significant contributor to the sense of dread for women.)

Meanwhile there are actual positives to turning 30, I thought! Namely mental and emotional growth, even from just living another year. (Maybe people think this is a given?) I was excited to have more time and experience with myself, and gain a deeper understanding of what I like, what I dislike, and why.

To me it was like 70-30 good stuff to bad stuff, so I was mostly looking forward to becoming the 30-year-old version of me in a couple of years. Nothing super scary to be worried about.

…

Until one day, I understood. I’d been daydreaming, half-seriously imagining what it would be like to make a drastic life change, to pursue something else I was interested in. Something new. How would I go about becoming a life coach? A high school math teacher? An erotic fiction writer, funded through Patreon? And I remember feeling a bunch of thoughts sort of *snap* into place and connect suddenly, and then I was hit with this cocktail of regret, worry, fear, and dread, and thought “OH I think this is what people are talking about, why 30 is scary, what it represents.”

It’s about the past and the future. About decisions and bridges crossed and consequences and values and sunk costs and baggage. And optionality and potential and dreams and possibility, and the loss of those things.

It was easy for me to spiral from there. “I spent my 20s, literally a decade, the first decade in my life where I had any real agency, making choices and getting to a point that I’m no longer that happy with. I’ve maxed out the wrong stats! It’ll take me another 10 years from this point to start something new and create great work! Do I even have 10 years to spend? Is it too late to do what I really want to do?”

I felt my stomach drop from thinking about it. So I get it now.

…

But I also reject this idea! In fact, I’m a proponent of the exact opposite frame (funnily enough I’d already written about it in a twitter thread a few months prior to having this experience):

It’s not too late. All of your decisions and experiences have served you by leading you up to this point, preparing you to even be able to consider wanting to do something new. And you can start doing the things you want to do, today, and become the person you want to be.

I view it less like “did I just f*ck up the last 10 years of my life?”, and more like “OK the last 10 years were fine, if not pretty good actually. I did what I did because I wanted to. Now I want something else, and it’s time to pursue that. (And who knows what lessons from those previous experiences might turn out to be useful in helping me achieve my new goals?)”

Another frame: one year from now, you can be the version of yourself that did The Thing you want to do, or you can be the version of yourself that didn’t do The Thing. Which do you want?

Let’s chat! I’d love to hear your thoughts on twitter or by email at [email protected].