I’m turning 30 tomorrow and what do I have to show for it?

The Ordinary Man
4 min readJan 15, 2025

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30 is a landmark birthday and one that I surprisingly don’t care about anymore. I cared about it a few years ago, but now, I couldn’t care less. It’s one of those things that look daunting from a distance, but when you’re here it’s fine.

People tell me that I should go crazy for my 30th, but I don’t want to, I want to do more of the stuff I usually do. I feel like people go crazy on their 30th because they’re afraid. It’s a way of coping.

When you hit 30 you reflect on your 20s, and I have to say my 20s were better than I expected, but that was because I didn’t expect anything. Overall, whilst I’m not where I’d like to be in some areas I’m pretty far “ahead” in others.

Some people might look at me and think I’m a loser, but I think I’ve developed in the most important areas. It’s all about self-improvement and not material things or superficial status.

I have wisdom

It might be cringe to say out loud, but I have wisdom. I have knowledge, I have experience, and I use them to make good decisions — most of the time. But how did I get here? I tried things.

I didn’t start my 20s this way, but when I got to around 22 or 23 I started trying new things all the time, consciously. Now I do what I want because I don’t see a reason why not. What’s the harm in trying and what’s the alternative?

As long as you’re learning from your experiences and you’re not doing things for the wrong reasons, go ahead.

I am emotionally stable

I had this confirmed by a meaningless test the other day at work. I used to be an angry child who held things in and then unleashed them on a person who pushed me too far. Nowadays I don’t react to much and I’m neutral most of the time.

You might wonder why I mention neutral and not happy, and it’s because being neutral is better than being happy all the time. Happiness is fleeting and it’s not possible to be happy all the time. It’s not a real goal and it’s not healthy to want to be that way.

Chasing happiness won’t make you happy, finding a purpose and taking on challenges will though.

Emotional maturity comes with its pros and cons. People try and test you and they think you don’t care about them, but I do care about people and of course I can lose my composure sometimes. I’m big on personal development and I am proud of the emotional resistance I have today.

I’m also proud of how I treat other people, even though many of you don’t deserve good treatment. I do it anyway and that has actually made people uneasy around me lmao. I don’t react in the way people expect and it throws them off.

People don’t expect cool or calm, they expect, and in some cases want drama. The lengths people will go to get it is scary. Some people genuinely don’t want to be happy.

I have few desires

I don’t require much to be happy and I can only see that as a good thing. Some people spend their lives trying to do things and get things that don’t bring them any real pleasure. I have accepted that I shouldn’t chase certain things because it’s bad for me, I don’t care about the status.

People are desperate for power and they want to feel like they’re important. They are desperate to be remembered and make their mark on the world because they’re scared of being forgotten.

I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. I want to live a good life and be as happy and fulfilled as possible. That’s all.

I’m ready for a new challenge

Although my 20s were hard I enjoyed the challenges looking back. I don’t think I would be happy living an easy life. I am ready for the new challenges of my 30s, and my first challenge is building a new following on a different platform.

That’s right, I will be leaving Medium and moving to Substack. It’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly, but Medium isn’t for me anymore. I’ve grown an audience of 1.3k people and most of them don’t see any of my posts.

Medium also don’t reward loyalty and hard work, and more importantly, it doesn’t reward writers. I don’t think Medium is a pro writer platform like it advertises itself to be, I don’t think it has been for a long time.

I won’t get into it too much, but if you’d like to follow me in the future, click the link below. I will be using a new identity there… my real one. I don’t need to hide myself anymore.

*Hopefully Medium doesn’t hide this post because I used an external link like they did when I was raising money for charity.

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