Why do we fear thirty so? Were the twenties that great that we can’t bear to leave it behind? Is thirty that old that we think it’s all downhill from there? Or is it that we built these expectations for ourselves as to where we’d be at thirty, and we’re not exactly there yet…

I know plenty of beautiful women in their thirties, that don’t “look” thirty. But what’s “looking thirty” these days anyway? What these women possess is confidence, passion, contentment, wisdom, and all this is with the absence of the freshman fifteen that we all welcomed our twenties with. Whether they are married, have kids, have careers, have a house; these women live their lives with a better understanding of themselves and what they have to offer the world. And that is something that is developed through the trial and errors of our twenties.

As my friends and I approach the thirty mark, some of the trial and errors we stumbled upon in our twenties left us just shy of where we expected to be at thirty. As a child, you assume you’ll be married with kids, a career, and a home by the big 3-0, and of course- you’ll be super happy about it all. As a kid, you didn’t think about having a low paying career that you hate, which has absolutely nothing to do with what you went to college for. And if you love your career, and it also happens to pay well, you probably didn’t think as a child that you might marry the wrong person in your twenties, and because life is too short to be unhappy, you’ll have to go through a divorce before ever reaching thirty. And if your marriage is going well, you probably didn’t ever think that you might have issues getting pregnant. And we won’t even get into the housing market…

The point is, is thirty that scary? Or are we the ones that make it scary because our expectations haven’t been met, and that makes us feel like we failed…

Maybe we could try a different approach. If we go into our thirties thinking; I hate my job, but I now have the experience to go out and get a new job, even if it means going back to school first. My friends that went back to school in their thirties got more out of it because they were learning what they knew they wanted to learn and appreciated it more. And if you went through a divorce, think of it as a learning experience. Say to yourself; I know now what I am looking for in a partner, so I will make a better decision about who I choose to be with. And if having kids is something you didn’t get to experience in your twenties, you still have lots of time to try in your thirties, with probably a lot more wisdom, knowledge, and appreciation for it than you had in your twenties.

We shouldn’t be on a time clock for careers, spouses, and kids. We have to put a little more faith in “what is supposed to be, will be”. Of course, we should make changes to better ourselves, but we shouldn’t force something because that’s what we expected to have at a certain age. Happiness and love are the most important things in life, and they come to us in all different ways at all different times of our lives. If you’re too worried about where you’re not at all of the time, you’ll miss out on observing all of the amazing things your life is supposed to be experiencing at that moment. So welcome thirty with open arms… and if you’re lucky; forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, and eighty as well…