So I just woke up, and I’m 30 years old… Fuck everything about this.
Yesterday was still a 20-something. Today I must refer to myself as a 30-something. I was not prepared! There should be some gradual process that helps you ease into this 30 year old thing. I guess I had to know this was coming. Somewhere in the back of my head I had to realize I was about to cross some unfathomable age threshold. But knowing about it did not prepare me for crossing it.
Now I am going to have to choose a totally different age bracket when I fill out online forms. You know, they always have these little groupings: “18-20”, “20-25”, “25-30” and “oh, hey – you are no longer our target demographic”.
Ok… I’m exaggerating. It’s probably not that bad. Apologies to all my readers above 30. I’m totally stoked to join your ranks, but I feel like I got here ahead of time. I always figured that probably by the time I’m 30 I will have my life more or less figured out. It wasn’t up until last year that I realized that this was probably an overly optimistic estimate.
Few weeks ago I was talking to a friend – we finished our Masters together and graduated around the same time. He was telling me about the new deck he is putting on his house. A deck… I haven’t actually expected to have a conversation like this with someone in my age group. Owning a deck (and a house that’s attached to it) is something I always imagine happening to me in a distant future. But apparently this future is here – it is a reality for people I have graduated with. It is quite bizarre.
Worst part is that I just don’t feel any different than I felt, say 10-15 years ago. They say you are supposed to become more mature and responsible with age but I’m suspecting this is a blatant lie. It almost seems as if being responsible, reliable and dependable seemed more important back when I was younger. I feel like I’m slowly becoming more and more of an expert at not giving a fuck.
In the recent immortality thread, Zel asked me why would I want to live forever. This is part of the answer to this question: life is just too short. When I was a kid, a year seemed to be an eternity and a half. Now, years whip past me so fast I can barely keep track of them. I’m sort of begging to realize that I don’t actually have that much time left to realize my dreams of being a world famous hacker, rock star, super spy astronaut. Especially considering the fact that I am way to lazy to do any rock-staring, super spying or astronauting right now.
Ok, I’m done now. I promise not to make this sort of whining a yearly ritual. I’m turning 30 and I guess I just had to get it out of my system. In fact, let’s all complain about getting old in the comments. This way can get it out of the way, and not talk about anymore… Or at the very least till next year.
On Friday I am reviewing an old, and quite bizarre (and unintentionally funny) SF movie, which is a bit apropos this discussion because it deals with immortality. I just wanted to apologize for the screenshots ahead of time (you will see what I mean).
You aren’t “turning 30”, you are, technically, going to be turning 31 (in a year)….you ARE 30 :)
Try turning 50…I’m only a year and a bit away from that…sigh
Steve wrote:
Ok, you win at aging, but it’s only because you had a head start. :)
Look at this like that: when we become immortal, you will always be slightly older than me. :D No matter what I do there wont be a way to surpass you in age. Unless time travel is possible, in that case I wont be satisfied until I am older than the universe. :)
Happy Birthday, Luke!
It doesn’t get any worse. Not the next few years anyway.
In six months time you will feel and believe you are 20-something until asked or actually counting.
The best part, you get to complain about young people, and pretend to forget stuff. :)
Luke Maciak wrote:
The difference will even out over time. 30 years ago you were a newborn that just had come out of your mother’s womb while Steve was already a grown-up. In 200 years the difference in age between the two of you will be less than 10%.
Somehow stumbled onto your website (via feedly actually). I turned 30 last year, and you took the words away from my mouth. I had the exact same feelings as what you wrote in your post. Tell you what – a decade later, when I’m married with couple of kids, I’d probably still be the same me – confused and unsure about what to make of life. Sad, how it seems I’ve gone thru life thinking it’d never end – when one bright sunny day (or maybe a cold winter night), couple of decades from now, I’d pass on – with a thousand and one things left undone, million and one words left unsaid… C’est la vie!!
Yeah, I tend to think that the idea that older people are mature, wise, responsible, etc., is a concept created by arrogant old people. In my opinion, the highest form of wisdom is being open-minded.
At the age of twenty, we don’t care what the world thinks of us; at thirty, we worry about what it is thinking of us; at forty, we discover that it wasn’t thinking of us at all.
Turned 20 in February, not being a teenager any more seemed like a sort of a ‘big thing’… except not really. Now have all those “20-something” years to look forward to I guess. Any advice, having just finished doing that thing?
General note to self/plan for the decade: try to be further along with the whole “sorting own life out” thing in 10 years time. Not doing so wonderfully with that at the moment, with the exception of doing reasonably well with academia.
*Sigh* I hear ya… I’m… uh, what, 32? (Honestly, after the 100th time you’re asked your age, start to reply “20-…” and then realize you need to up the tens place, you stop caring. :p )
Matt: My advice is to stop worrying so much about the whole “big picture life-sorting” thing and just concentrate on doing well on each thing you take on. If you’re currently taking on education and doing well, it sounds like you’ll be fine, as long as you try to do equally well (or better) at whatever you take on next (be it job, relationship, whatever).@ Jason:
I’m just one year behind you :(
Welcome to the 30s! It was a shock for me too, I’m only 31 now and have got used to it.
I’d say the good thing about being a geek (and male, I suppose), is we reach our peak maturity around the early twentys. No-one expects us to grow up any more. I suppose in a sense, we may get a little more mature. I found myself in a pub discussing Vacuum cleaners the other day – mine was the most powerful, so whilst it’s a subject I would never have thought I’d be in discussions about, it still boiled down to whos was best.
I will only feel old in October then I’ve lived for 1 billion seconds – since I can’t really visualise 1 billion, that to me is an obscene age!
Regarding those online demographic questions: I’ve seen a few that are grouped like “24-33,” “34-43,” “44-53,” etc., and I’ve wondered if they did that on purpose, to ease the choice for those of use whose odometer just turned over another 1’s digit. Afterall, if you’ve just turned 34, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to answer the “34-43” question. (“At least I’m still at the bottom end!” you think).
Anyway, Happy Birthday!
Welcome! I turned 30 last year and will be 31 in a little less than a month. From what I’ve heard and seen that’s when the shit really hits the fan. My buddy turned 31 back in January and just had knee surgery this week. I’ve heard similar stories from other people 31+…
@ Liudvikas:
Wait… How do you become younger via time travel? I mean, you can’t move your date of birth… Do you mean travel back and just live through the ages up until present, highlander style?
@ Gothmog:
Thank you!
@ Tormod Haugen:
Ah, yes…. Young people. When I was their age we carried our data on 51/2” floppy disks… In the snow… Up the hill, both ways.
@ nitro2k01:
Yes! Thank you. It’s actually quite interesting that in a few hundred years we will all be approximately the same relative age. :)
@ Iam30too:
Welcome. I hope you will stick around.
Oh, and we are not dying, remember? We all talked about it few posts earlier and we are living forever. Screw death and aging. We will fix it with science.
@ Nathaniel Mikkola:
Well, I think part of it is that old people had their share of fuck-ups and mistakes, so they could technically advise younger people, and prevent them from making the same mistakes… But, that is changing. This still held true last two or three decades but nowadays, elderly people are becoming more and more hopeless. We have a growing population of elderly people who are either completely disconnected from the net, or have it, but don’t know what to do with it. They are frightened by progress, and scared of the social changes facilitated by technology. And they vote. :(
This is my greatest fear actually – becoming one of these people. If I become a senile old man who needs his grandson to come over to set up and configure some technological thingymabob, then you guys have my permission to perform a mercy killing. :P
@ MrJones:
Well, fuck…. I think I did this thing backwards. I spent my teenage years, and my twenties trying to pass as a normal, well adjusted person and just fit in (trying is the operative word here). Only now I’m slowly starting to realize that I’m much happier when I can just be myself, and don’t give a fuck about what the world thinks. :P
@ Matt`:
Turning twenty is actually pretty sweet. Here in US, it means you only have a year to go until you are finally considered a fully fledged person and allowed to get drunk legally. :)
Don’t sweat about this stuff too much yet – you will have more than enough time to do the sorting out after you graduate. Also, make sure you do some of that college stuff with the drinking, partying and being generally irresponsible. That’s the time for it. I wish I did more of that kind of stuff back then – but you know, social anxiety, shyness, etc… Plus I had this idea that college is SRS BUSINESS. So now I have sort of a deficit of crazy college party stories – especially ones that do not involve like twenty sided dice, or all night semi-sober coding marathons during finals week. So yeah, live a little. You can have some fun, and still maintain high grade point average. :)
@ Jason:
Well, right now I’m sort of obscenely aware of the 30. But hopefully it will pass. Few years ago if you asked me my age I would be like “twenty… si… even… I mean eight…” :P
@ jambarama:
Hey, enjoy your last year as a 20-something. :)
@ mcai8sh4:
Oh shit… Now I am going to obsess over crossing the Gigasecond threshold. Thanks a lot man. lol
@ Matthew Weathers:
Thanks. That actually could be why they do this. I never really wondered how they break these age groups down.
@ Rob:
Ok, this is not making me feel better at all. Science needs to hurry the fuck up with that immortality shit. I don’t want knee surgeries. :( Wait, is that mandatory? Can I get out of it on the grounds of being conscientious objector or something?
@ Luke Maciak:
Reading comprehension – please get it.
I meant I would become older than you by using time travel. I would go back in time and live through ages and then win by becoming older than you. But unless time travel is possible I will be forever and ever younger than you.
-1 internet for not getting subtle hitchhikers guide reference.
I totally understand what you feel!
I will turn 31 shortly and most of my friends are already buying house, preparing their wedding or choosing which room to use for their baby.
I fear the day they’ll start asking me routinely when I am getting married or having a baby…