Advice

[Moksha]

I have just turned 30 I live at home, have no job or relationship/social life. If you could go back in time and speak to yourself on your 30th birthday what advice would you give yourself? Obviously this is aimed at those in their late 30s and older. I mean, what do you wish you had known when you were 30... or done?

[fairyfingers]

Belated congratulations on being 30 years young

If i could go back to that age i would tell myself how it is actually no great age at all in the grand scale of things since we all progress differently with different aims , values and issues ect to overcome, not to mention luck being a big factor too.

When feeling negative it is easy to put emphasis on things you have not achieved, forgetting to give credit for things you have.


The older i have got i have learned to focus better on taking a day at a time and just try to overcome and progress as it seems impossible and unrealistic to measure my achievements and progress against others or narrow it down to certain achievements.

Not that I think having goals is a bad thing , just that they realistically are not the full picture and a very narrow measure of the real person.Often those that set out to follow certain goals miss out on other opportunities and ways to grow through being to focused on achieving their set goals.

Some may find themselves with a successful job/business, flash car and trophy wife and an endless amount of social invitations but does not mean they have necessarily been that successful in finding true happiness or be that decent a person and certainly is no measure of intelligence ect after all.

All i do know is i would hate to go back, think the positive thing about aging is life is a learning experience seems better to try and keep an open mind especially about the future just aiming to keep learning and progressing in different ways than let a closed one, regrets and blinkers hold you back.

Best of luck for the next decade

ps) hope that makes a little sense, i still have not learned not to try and say anything part way meaningful or intelligent until after my first tea of the day :embarass:

[Moksha]

Thanks fairyfingers

Is it your birthday today, Moksha? Or was it recently?

Many Happy Returns either way. I'm only 27 and shouldn't really be posting here Sorry to hear how you are feeling though

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by The_Ubiquitous_Gecko

Is it your birthday today, Moksha? Or was it recently?

Many Happy Returns either way. I'm only 27 and shouldn't really be posting here

Nahh, it was in December . 27 eh? Ahh, I remember back when I was 27, those were the days. Enough of that, this old timer do ramble on don't he!

[IAMNC]

I'm 33. Turning 30 wasnt much of a big deal really, it was just the same old, same old.
I've noticed people react differently to it though. Some sort of go nuts and act like their a teenager in a spiral of drinks, drugs and party excess and then wake up with a shock when they're 36 and everyone else is settled down! They are usually pretty confident to begin with though.
Others (like me) i think start accepting who they are and try to understand themselves better. no big changes, just important ones.
i still feel young though. i was talking to my dad (nearly 70) about it and he said once you get to about 40, you dont notice any change in how old you 'feel', just more aches etc.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by IAmNotCool

I'm 33. Turning 30 wasnt much of a big deal really, it was just the same old, same old.
I've noticed people react differently to it though. Some sort of go nuts and act like their a teenager in a spiral of drinks, drugs and party excess and then wake up with a shock when they're 36 and everyone else is settled down! They are usually pretty confident to begin with though.
Others (like me) i think start accepting who they are and try to understand themselves better. no big changes, just important ones.
i still feel young though. i was talking to my dad (nearly 70) about it and he said once you get to about 40, you dont notice any change in how old you 'feel', just more aches etc.

I can honestly say turning 30 was one of the most painful experiences of my life. I could no longer lie to myself and say "well, still plenty of time, I'll sort myself out tomorrow". I realised life was what had happened while I was planning to live. Mind you, I have always been obsessed with, and tormented by, my age/ the passing of time- I can remember being depressed at turning 15!

[IAMNC]

I know what you're saying, i often feel life is passing me by, not so often now though. I think part of it is facing up to reality. You have to lose some dreams. Sometimes most of them! But you can make more realistic ones.

[Holly]

I think part of it is facing up to reality. You have to lose some dreams. Sometimes most of them! But you can make more realistic ones.

Yes, I totally agree with this! I turned 30 in April and found it, not so much scarey, as totally weird as I do not look, act or feel this age at all. It hasn't made that much difference to me, other than I think I'm a hell of a lot more aware of how quickly time passes and in some ways, this creates more of an urgency to "make things happen" in life.

But as for the above quote :

I spent most of my 20s imagining this dream life for myself - living in the city, with non stop social life and cultural delights at my fingertips. I attempted to move to Manchester and complete teacher training, but my SA / depression was so bad that I had to admit defeat after only 2 months and move back in with the parents: jobless and depressed, with absolutely no idea where my life was heading. A few more years of this,and I realised that I was REFUSING to make a life for myself if that life fell short of my previous ideals.

So once I got myself a decent job in my home town, I decided it was high time to find a flat there. I'd previously REFUSED outright that I would ever settle in my home town as it's bland, lacks any sort of individuality and a lot of people here are narrow minded. But, it's familiar, I have couple of mates and my parents down the road.

I'm now up and down and by NO MEANS sorted at all - but the flat and job were all steps in boosting my self esteem a little.

I'm going on, but all I'm saying is, my dreams when I was 20 have in no way materialised, but by being more realistic as to what I was capable of acheiving, I was able to find my own little niche of success.