Thirty and life's checkpoints

A year ago, give or take, I had a steady job at a multinational corporation. The workplace was good, the money was better and my ambitions were, for the lack of a better word, stunted. Truth is, I didn’t see myself climbing the ladder in the company. Part of it was that I felt no real passion for my job and ergo, I really didn’t try to excel at it, but mainly it was because I wanted to pursue a career as a writer.

I had been toying with the idea of quitting for a long time, but I liked the lifestyle that job allowed me to lead. Stability is important. It’s a gift we often take for granted. It’s also somewhat restrictive and, more often than not, the perfect excuse not to take chances. But just like all the best stories, things were about to change for my twenty-six year-old self. After all, what’s a first act without an exciting incident?

Turns out the company was just as tired of me as I was of it. And one seemingly random day, things reached a point of no return. Mistakes from the past came back to bite me in the ass. Every choice I ever made during my time in that company drove me to a corner from which there was no escape. And when push came to shove, the decision was mutual: we could both see it wasn’t working. It was amicable, all things considered. And just like all the best break-ups, we said goodbye with no regrets.

Now I’ll be serious with you: I can’t deny that I look back at those years as somewhat of a waste. Sure, I earnt some money and I did make two really great friends who I still talk to. But the truth is, if I had pursued my writing career five years ago, right after leaving college, perhaps I’d have achieved something by now. Nothing is certain in this life, that’s what makes it worth living, or so I’ve heard. But I can’t help but question my choices, especially as I near those dreaded thirties.

They say thirty is when you’re truly ready to start a new phase in your life. You leave behind the uncertainty of your twenties and a new era dawns upon you. You’re supposed to have certain stability career wise: if everything went right, then you spent five or six years consolidating your professional path and by thirty, you’re ready for that promotion you’ve been working towards.

That means your personal life can also take the next step. If you’re in a relationship, then you start thinking of formalizing; if you aren’t, you’re ready to leave dating behind and start looking for something more serious. If you’re still living with your parents, then thirty is the best moment to leave the nest; and if you’re one of those who left it right after twenty five, then you start toying with the idea of buying your own place.

In other words, thirty is when you’re supposed to be at the top of your game. Your shit should be together. Thirty and flirty and thriving. Isn’t that how the saying went? Why is it that this age is such a landmark in our lives? Perhaps it’s the fact that, when we’re teenagers, the number seems so far, so distant, that we use it as a checkpoint in this video game called life. We view thirty as a midpoint in our journeys, a moment that definitely separates the innocence of our childhoods from the seriousness of adulthood.

Twenty is the time when you experience. You fall in and out of love, you sleep around and have one-night stands with people whose names you don’t even remember by the time the act is done. You get your first job and fuck up in all possible ways. You quit and get a new job, because why the hell not? You’re closer to your teenage years, so you think everything is possible. They don’t call them the roaring twenties for nothing.

And so now that I’m fast approaching the big three o, I wonder: is my life where I want it to be? Have I achieved everything I thought I would? The answer is a rotund no. Then again, I’ve never lived a by-the-numbers life. All these things I mentioned, I didn’t do in my twenties. I didn’t consolidate a professional career; hell, I spent three years stuck in the same position because my head was too busy feeling fictions. I didn’t do the whole dating scene, much less the sleeping around. I did fall in love, once, and it ended badly. Actually, it didn’t really end because it never really began, but that’s a story for a different time.

The thing is, I can’t help but feel like, as I approach this middle stage of my life, I’m dragging behind in life experiences. And I know it’s the same for a lot of us out there, all of us Gen Yers. For previous generations, it was always a case of living up to the parade of expectations set upon them. After all, they were children of the war, responsible for rebuilding the world. For us, it’s all about not living up to the preconceived notion of our apparent aimless and reckless lifestyle.

To them, we are the crystal generation, the one that comes apart with just one touch. We’re too sensitive, too preoccupied with fixing the mistakes of the past to look forward into the future. We’re too fragile, too delicate for this cruel world. We’re labeled. And as we all know, the thing about labels is that they stick.

Can we escape from these judgements that have been cast upon us? Can we break free from the path we’re supposed to take to walk the one we want to take? Can we ever, like Daenerys once said, break the wheel? In a world obsessed with accomplishments, where success is measured by where you work, where you live, what you’ve seen and, at times, who you sleep with, can you ever truly succeed?

With two years to go to reach the middle stage of my life, the pressure is more than ever before. Two years to achieve everything I thought I’d have by thirty. Is this a sane way to look at things? Or are all these deadlines just making life harder? And if they are, perhaps we have grown accustomed to them. Perhaps we might even need them to function properly. After all, we only have one lifetime to get this shit done.

Is it so ridiculous, then, to have a schedule to make the best out of the limited time we have on this Earth? Are deadlines the pulling of ears necessary for us to get off our asses and actually try? I think they just might be. Sure, they’re terrifying and you never seem to notice them until they’re right by the corner. But as any good writer knows, sometimes, a deadline is just what you need to write that story you’ve been dying to tell.