When teenagers finally become adults, they are let in on the little secret that no one actually knows what they are doing. The truth is that even seasoned adults sometimes need to ask for help and advice to navigate life.
One netizen asked the internet “What’s a common mistake people make in their 30s?” People shared the ups and downs, misconceptions, and little victories of growing older. So make yourself comfortable, maybe find somewhere to take notes and get to scrolling. Be sure to upvote your favorite posts and comment your thoughts below.
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Once a person is in their mid-twenties, it can be hard to find real-life advice and mentorship. After all, you have been a full adult for some time by then, able to vote, drive, drink, and take out loans. You have possibly already participated in multiple election cycles and maybe even own a car. Younger people might already be coming to you for advice.
You might struggle to explain to them that you don’t really understand what is going on at the same time. So it’s no surprise that many people enter their 30s with only the inkling of a plan and just do their best. Just because someone has survived three decades doesn’t automatically mean they suddenly gain some deeper insight, just like turning twenty doesn’t unlock some new ability.
Thinking they are too old. Never too late to switch career paths or look for a new relationship or start taking care of your health.
Giterdun456:
I just turned 30 and realized I’m a bad person. Lying, manipulation, cheating, etc. But I went back into weekly therapy, and I'm pretty determined to not be like this going forward.
Settling for a spouse.
thefox47545:
See this SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH! People getting married for the sake of getting married. As a consequence, I'm seeing divorces SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH too! Been on dates where it's obvious the girl wants the title of wife more than actually being a wife.
Not exercising enough and eating a cr*ppy diet. You can't get away with those things anymore like you did in your 20s.
One area that many thirty-year-olds likely don’t think about until it’s too late is physical health. While the twenties are often a peak for many people, this can create bad habits down the line. When you are young, you feel invincible because, in many ways, you sort of are. This rarely translates into one’s thirties, so if a person doesn’t adjust their lifestyle, they end up feeling a lot worse without immediately understanding why.
Not wearing sunscreen and taking care of your skin. especially your face.
I think the biggest mistake _I_ made in my 30s was kind of going on autopilot. I'm 42 in a month, and, to be dead honest, I'm not sure my 30s even happened. It feels like I went from 29 to 40. And I think it's because I just kind of kept my head down and carried on as usual. I should have spent that time being more pro-active. Stupid me, but it doesn't have to be stupid you!
It's hard but I think it's somehow part of everyday life... or at least that's how I feel. every day just happens, goes by and seems to repeat itself. Time passes very surreally this way - quickly and slowly at the same time. It's all the more important to take some time for yourself at least once a year and do something nice (leave the housework alone and not work for the house, really. You'll have that left for other days). The rare free time with friends is also important. I'm trying to incorporate semi-regular meetings into my everyday life again. and if it's only three hours on Friday after work (which makes the weekend feel longer), then that's fine. (Edit: train to not feel guilty of every dirty dish, relax from time to time in your chaos and just be you. Make it normal that not everything is spotless - just keep it healthy clean)
Staying at a job they are severely unhappy at and accepting toxic work environments. Cough cough teachers
This is just as true when it comes to partners and careers. It’s actually a bit bizarre that high-school graduates are tasked with picking a career path, then often taking on a mountain of debt, with little-to-no real-life experience. The result is burnt-out people struggling to keep afloat in their twenties, trapped in jobs they don’t actually want to do.
Not taking care of your teeth.
I've recently made a bigger effort to remember to floss every day. It makes me feel so adult for some basic self care.
Being concerned about not being the young, trendy generation anymore. Wear your skinny jeans all you want, millennial women!
Panicing. You do not need to have a great career, partner, 4-bedroom house, and baby on the way just because your 20s are over. Relax.
💯 I'm 37, still single and living in rented accommodation. Sometimes I do worry that my chance of finding the right man and getting married etc has gone, but mostly I'm actually quite happy with my life and I'm grateful that at least I'm not trapped in a toxic relationship just for the sake of not being alone. I don't allow being single to stop me doing anything and I go to the cinema alone, I've travelled alone and I've had some amazing experiences. This idea that you pass some sort of finish line when you hit 30 is ridiculous.
Some of the responses mention that you will notice time start to fly by quickly for the first time. In the blink of an eye, you go from 30 to 35, suddenly you are now 39. After all, the longer you live, the shorter each day, week, and even month seems, as time and experiences blend together. Learning to be present seems like eye-rolling cliche advice when you are young and can’t sit still for over four minutes, but it comes in handy later.
Romanticizing your 20s and fearing your 40s. (live where you are).
iamnottheuser:
It's so easy to romanticize the past and fear the future. Life is organic, and so are we. We will keep changing and oftentimes in a good way (stronger, wiser, more confident, etc.). I'm so happy to be who I am at 37.
Everyone has a tendency to declare when “the good old days” were. It’s generally when you had much less responsibility, awareness of life’s grim realities and likely when your mother still did your laundry. Objectively, in my 50s, I live in a safer world (Current situations aside..), am emotionally wiser, more tolerant, more financially and emotionally secure than in my 20s, I have a much better b******t detector when dealing with people, know who deserves my time and who doesn’t. Best of all, I’ve lost the steadfast moral certainties of my younger self and have realised that there are few absolute black and white issues - just shades of grey. Would I go back? Not on your Nelly!
Taking care of your body. Once I turned 31 lots of medical issues arose for me from various things but contact sports leave more damage than you know. Go to the dentist go to the doctor be active. I say all this as I’m about to be in a hospital during a hurricane in Florida. Take care of yourself physically. mentally. and spiritually.
Making relationship decisions based on avoiding/meeting/holding on to milestones by a certain age. (I can't be a divorcee at 34, I have to be married by 34, I need to start a family in the next two years, I'm too old to start dating again, etc.)
One reason why some may simply try to avoid this question is the tough-to-swallow reality that things tend to get worse. Your body breaks down, you really do need to be setting more money aside for retirement and you have less and less time to function. But you are finally at a stage in life where you have, hopefully, tried enough to know what you want. This knowledge is perhaps worth more than just its weight in gold, which can be simply bought and sold. Experience only comes with time.
Not listening to their burnout signals and just settling in for the long haul. You’re not going to make it. And if you do “make it” you won’t like yourself or the sacrifices you had to make along the way.
Thinking you're a finished product, not likely to change all that much.
Biggest mistake I made in my 30's was not enjoying them more.
Young enough to party, still play some sports, and perfectly in place in any bar. You have energy, you have a circle of friends (that will get smaller, trust me).
Try to carpe a diem every once in a while, the decade passes VERY quickly.
Time really does seem to go faster as you get older. I swear, stuff that happened 10 years ago seem like they only happened 3 years ago.
Not getting over or at least somewhat understanding your childhood and parental issues. Understanding that stuff can make the rest of your life easier.
Thinking you can’t make a difference in someone’s life because the world is too large to see your small act. I have a student with extreme depression, and I always remind her that it’s not a bad life, it’s a bad day when she has an attack. Even though she is usually too upset to talk or even respond, I just sit with her in silence until the crisis passes. A lot of people will ask me why I even bother, she’ll never get better, my action is insignificant and means nothing, but you know what: it meant something to her and made her life better. That’s good enough for me. Never think you can’t make a difference, people.
I made a habit of making small stuffies and leaving them in pantry boxes with "I'm (name), be my friend" notes for the past year without ever really knowing what happens once they are taken. I'm at the last bit of my stuffing in my bag and I was debating if it was even worth continuing when I found a note left in one of the boxes yesterday, letting me know what a difference I had made to someone for some small act. The little things matter.
Not stretching. Like not necessarily before exercise (though absolutely that too) but just in general.
Stretch your back when you wake up, before you get out of bed. Hug your knees to your chest, roll your hips from side to side, etc. It takes like 5 minutes and helps you wake up, and I haven't had any back issues at all since I started this, whereas before I would tweak my back a few times per year from something mundane like sneezing or putting on my shoes lol
Thinking you need the job, house, marriage, kids combo to be perfect.
I got into a profession I loved at 32, after I switched careers, and went back to school at 29. I've had 4 different jobs since.
Bought a house at 34. Got lucky. Right now is not the time.
Had a kid at 38- it took 6 years of trying.
I'm really happy.
No fairytale relationship, and that's ok. Never married, don't believe in it.
It's never too late to retrain for a job, houses depend a lot on APR and debt ratio, marriage is expensive if you do it with the wrong person, kids are a blessing if you want them, there are natural limits to fertility. If you don't, lots of wonderful contraceptive options don't depend on other people for that.
Live the life you want for you and the people who support and uplift you. Ignore social media and ignore social norms. Do commit to something special, a person, a project, a dream. Commitment yields good things! Don't lose out on a good thing you have, while imagining everything you do not have is better.
The grass is greener where you water it. Or you know, tear it up and plant something local. Everything I have achieved took years of planning, support, and intention. Slow and steady. Small and focused.
Smoking. You need to quit that s**t. After 10 years of smoking I stopped smoking at the age of 28. Best thing I've ever done. Now I am 32, healthier than ever.
Comparing their lifestyle to other 30-somethings.
ThunderBobMajerle:
Your peer's success can seem perfect from afar and make you feel inadequate. But if you sit down and talk with them, you will learn all sorts of shortcomings and difficulties in their life that will make you appreciate something about yourself and your situation. In other words, we're all just out here trying to function.
Comparing yourself to others is perfectly normal human behaviour and not something you can just switch off. One just needs to learn to be more reasonable about it imo.
Thinking you aren’t STILL sexy, sensual, and desirable. You are, you’re beautiful.
I was just as sexy, sensual, and desirable at 40 as I was at 20. But that was the problem.
Thinking it's too late to do something. "I don't have any credit built", "I don't have any retirement savings", and get disheartened from trying. The best time was yesterday, the next best time is today.
Thinking you have to be settled in your career. 39 and starting over. Excited for new chapter.
My mistake was not traveling and remaining in my own near-sighted American cocoon. My advice is to travel as soon as you can and sample what the World has to offer. Places in the U.S. and overseas may offer better environments and circumstances well beyond what you have today.
This one is not specific to the 30s: Not understanding our inner world is the biggest mistake. As Carl Jung wrote: 'But you cannot flee from yourself. It is with you all the time and demands fulfillment.' A significant portion of who we truly are, what we like, what we are capable of, and the reasons we do the things we do, persist within a realm we don't actively understand or have access to. To become our true selves, we need introspection to learn about the aspects of our being that we are unaware of, dislike or hide.
To summarize my points below: Your 30s is when you are really in the thick of "adulting". It's easy to loose focus on what is really important to you among all the demands and responsibilities.
Not Fostering Friendships: As you enter your 30s, maintaining and nurturing friendships becomes more challenging. It's a time when connections can fade, and forming new ones becomes harder. It's very important to invest effort in the friendships you currently have. **Edit:** A few people have commented about what to do when people don't reciprocate? My advise - keep trying! Everyone is under water in their 30's, they likely won't be able to make every attempt at outreach you make. But over time as things become less hectic they will remember you kept trying (without guilt) and will appreciate it and come back to you. But toxic people, yeah cut those out!
Not Nurturing Your Romantic Relationship: Responsibilities increase in your 30s like careers, parenthood, and caregiving for aging parents. It's common for the most crucial relationship – your romantic partnership – to be inadvertently neglected. Avoid taking your partner for granted, assuming they'll always be around, or treating them as an outlet for your worst moments.
Not Preserving Your Identity: Similar to the previous points, your 30s come with a whirlwind of conflicting priorities that can lead you to lose touch with your identity. It's easy to forget what truly brings you joy and satisfaction. Maintain a hobby that gives your life purpose and regularly reflect on whether your job still fulfills your needs in terms of purpose, financial stability, and overall satisfaction.
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Yup, keep writing those bday messages and Christmas cards, even when there isn't much coming back from people busy with careers and kids. Those friendships will rekindle later in life.
Note: this post originally had 52 images. It’s been shortened to the top 31 images based on user votes.
The problem with the youth of today is that I am not a part of them anymore
When they say age is just a number, there is some truth to it, IMO. I'm 36 and trying to pick up Japanese in hopes of taking the JLPT N5 at least (just missed the registration date) and going back there a second time. To be honest, Hokkaido 2019 was my 1st overseas trip as an adult (1st was when I barely even spoke at about 2 years old) and I have dreams of travelling once more. I won't lie, money is a primary issue now, but believe you me, I'm working on it and have at least close to a sustainable amount. All-in-all, the 30s is the era where you begin to find yourself and there is never a bad time to start. I now live by this saying: Life is fleeting, NEVER Live In Fear. Hence, while I'm still operating while close to hitting 40, fear isn't an option for me.
The problem with the youth of today is that I am not a part of them anymore
When they say age is just a number, there is some truth to it, IMO. I'm 36 and trying to pick up Japanese in hopes of taking the JLPT N5 at least (just missed the registration date) and going back there a second time. To be honest, Hokkaido 2019 was my 1st overseas trip as an adult (1st was when I barely even spoke at about 2 years old) and I have dreams of travelling once more. I won't lie, money is a primary issue now, but believe you me, I'm working on it and have at least close to a sustainable amount. All-in-all, the 30s is the era where you begin to find yourself and there is never a bad time to start. I now live by this saying: Life is fleeting, NEVER Live In Fear. Hence, while I'm still operating while close to hitting 40, fear isn't an option for me.
