Turned 30 and realized I spent my 20s not doing too much
I moved to NYC recently and it made me realize I barely existed before this. I did all the respectable resumethings, got degrees, worked in tech, ended up in finance but mostly floated through life without committing hard enough to become genuinely exceptional at anything would usually be half baked and would also be baked a lot of the time.
Now I’m surrounded by people who have been plotting their careers, bodies, relationships and social lives since they were 22, and I feel like some frat bro who just discovered ambition. I’m happier and more alive here, but also neurotically aware that I lost most of my twenties studying and not doing much when I was in school, I know 30 isn’t old in NYC, but it feels humiliating to only now be developing a real appetite for life. Did anyone else wake up late and actually manage to do what they wanted, or is this just the standard narcissistic panic of turning 30?
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It took me until I was 27 to actually care about my life. I think up until then I was moving via survival mode, around 25 survival mode kinda turned into some ideation around not wanting to live another 25 or 50 years in survival mode, and now three years later I don’t want to die anymore, so that’s something. It’s legit only been a year of actually being an active agent in my life and I really feel ya on how much it sucks knowing others have had most of their lives focused like this. Idk I think what I’m trying to say is #same and it sucks but also good on us for finally seeing the light. We’re both still very very young, the time lost is nothing compared to what we have ahead of us. Sorry to end like a hallmark card but it’s something I say to myself a lot.
hey same ❤️ it was 32 for me lol
i’m 32 now and i feel the same
I’m 32 and it’s been hitting me hard recently. I definitely feel like I wasted my 20s chasing unrealistic dreams. Now I’m trying to pull myself out of 2 years of caregiving and get back on track. It’s good to hear that others have turned it around too.
How did you get out of survival mode tho
I don’t think it was one specific thing, but maybe it was? I had two friends die at the end of 2023. The grief pulled me lower than I’d ever been to the point that I had to say “oh do I actually want to be alive or no?” And turns out my answer was yes. And extra so, “I want to be alive in a way that I’ve never lived before.” Like I kind of woke up with a sense of entitlement to everything I’d never let myself want, beforehand. So that’s where I’m at now. It’ll be years before I get out from under all the fuck ups of my teens and early twenties but it feels so nice to actually care about myself. Maybe it’s in spite of all the years wasted, but it works for me, for now. I’m sure there could be something about frontal lobe development in there too but idk about all that tbh.
I'm rooting for you! I feel like I'm in a similar situation.
eventually you get tired enough with yourself and low grade but ever present suffering to change conditions.
I'm 30f, career and personal life sucks, no wealth, living w roommates, and I didn't even think I was behind lol
I guess its because I work with people at the 0.01 percent of the income bracket and feel bad because I am from a very normal upbringing most people can relate to.
what are the things that you wished you would have done? and would they have even brought you into contact with the people you're comparing yourself to? do you just think these people look cool, or is there something about their values and how they see the world that you want to emulate? this broad from queens welcomes you to consciousness
I think it’s less that I want to be them and more that being around them recalibrated my sense of what’s possible. I wish I’d taken my career more seriously earlier, built stronger relationships, and taken more calculated risks. But I’m also realizing that wealth doesn’t automatically mean they have values or lives I’d want to copy. A lot of this is probably just comparison brain from being surrounded by extreme outliers who I work with.
Then you are not behind you made up being born out of that and become bracket.
When I moved to New York after graduating it took me a few years to start living and get in the circles I wanted just because I wasn’t born wealthy and had to work for it — to get the money, the knowledge and the savoir-faire.
same and life is better than it has ever been. I get along with my roommates enough to spend time together and have friends over, my parents are healthy, I'm nearly stable. most people I know my age who are in the position of having a job and life their parents aren't mildly embarrassed of have lives that, to me, seem pretty small, lots of people being shuffled along by their partners with zero interest in engaging with a world beyond their immediate home, childhood friends and family. idk it's a fine life to have by many measures but not my preference
I'm not a sexist but it's a totally different story for women than for men. Many ppl will be reluctant to openly admit it (especially women) cuz many ppl have sweared to never admit the clear reality everyone sees and feels, but a broke aimless 30 or even 40 yo woman is valued much much more than a man in the same boat
Well, I'm not broke tbf and work a salaried job, but I am living a pretty typical life I feel for a 30yo lower middle class woman in a very high cost of living city.
No wealth does not mean broke. Idk. Maybe I'm just not materialistic but I'd be fine w a 30s guy with "no wealth" with a steady job like me
I didn't mean to set standards for men (or women), it was just a comparative thing between men and women
I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing. I'm just saying like yeah as a woman I would absolutely feel bad and shame about being broke at 30. I don't see it as a gendered thing. I'm saying I have a FT job and am completely self sufficient as I have been since I was 18, but it's normal in very high cost of living cities to be living in a way that seems appropriate for "poor people" I guess.
Yeah I'm the same boat. Never did get around to dating as much I should have and now I feel really behind. At least I'm making moves career wise and everything but depression really took a couple of years from me
sometimes it can be good to take it easy
I took it relatively easy for me for most of my 20s. Ive been grinding since than at a slow pace but I want to accelerate and become the person I imagined I’d be when I was a kid.
I spent my entire 20s and half of my 30s taking care of my schizophrenic mother who later succumbed to cancer. I did study and get a job. But my life outside work was staying home with my mother. I never knew what traveling or sex or partying was really like before she died. A part of me is bitter about it, but another has just accepted that there is no getting my youth back so it's better to just enjoy life before I get too old.
30s is young, you have at least 10 years ahead of you dating and traveling before people start asking questions about why you haven't settled.
You either do great at work in your 20s but lack in carefree experiences, or have carefree experiences but lack in resume achievements. If you did both you had Good Parents
Worth reminding yourself occasionally that “people who have been plotting their careers, bodies, relationships and social lives since they were 22” are fucking weird.
When you see those trite faux-inspirational memes about deathbed regrets consisting mostly of people who wish they hadn’t worked so hard, hadn’t let socially ingrained expectations and milestones define their lives, had taken even a moment to do something spontaneous with no quantifiably beneficial outcome…the people you’re talking about are the ones who actually have those regrets. They’re the ones whose future regrets are so predictable that they’re featured in shitty memes.
Obviously it’s good to have ambition and goals and being a layabout is a huge waste of time, but a well-lived life and a neurotically planned one with an expectation of defined outcomes at specific times aren’t the same thing. I’ve known so many Type A, intensely driven people who I don’t envy because they’re terrified to do anything unconventional.
Maybe you’ve had a stagnant life up to this point and this is the moment you’re realizing you can do more, and if so that’s an unequivocally positive revelation. But for the love of God if this is just about envying the worst sorts of strivers and optimizers that you meet in cities like NYC, get that outta your head. Cultivate your appetite for life, don’t deaden yourself all over again in pursuit of a gamified ladder to success.
This is probably the most useful way anyone has framed it. I don’t regret having a less linear 20s as much as I’m afraid of drifting through another decade (dont want to be old with regret). Being around extremely ambitious people in NYC has made me realize I’m capable of doing so much more, but I also don’t want to turn my entire life into an project. I want to build something I’m proud of without treating every relationship or experience as a step on a ladder.
Dude this hits hard. I had a friend who spent his 20s optimizing, pinching pennies, and accruing wealth to the point he was pretty much retired by the age of 35.
Travels, has a lovely gf, has his own home, but will give mixed messages on his life outcome: on one hand, he'll say his 20s should've been spent more carefully but will admit he pretty much gave up life in his 20s for his 30s and still feels unfulfilled. The level of self-awareness is astounding.
And I see the behavior. He will generate an almost neurotically mathematical assessment of what's considered worth it or non-worthy (outings, vacations, etc.)
That is a normal feeling, especially moving to NYC. I came in 2022 after finally finishing school but also not doing much since Covid hit. Felt like I had been in some time accelerator. Felt like I did more in two months in the city than two and a half years.
Also the city is full of the most driven and ambitious people in the country(/world). This is the cream of the crop, especially in the finance industry. It’s very normal to just live your life.
Also something to think about is people that “lived their lives” in their 20s might be broke and don’t have insurance. I’m in the film industry which is obviously a dream job for many and can be successful but the reality is usually unglamorous and you have a lot of low paid grinding or it’s feast for famine.
You’ve worked hard and positioned yourself to take advantage of anything you may want to do.
Also early 30s and ran into this feeling as well. I started a new job and I simultaneously feel inadequate compared to some of my peers, while also emboldened to actually change things. Part of it is that I think I’m in the first working environment that I can have a meaningful impact in, and which provides actual intrinsic satisfaction. I also work with people who have done some really cool things in life, some of them younger than myself.
I’ve been doubling down on career development because of it, and outside of work I’ve been rapidly realizing I gotta get out of my habits that amount to nothing and replace them with things where I can do meaningful things like writing and making art. I’ve made my wife promise that our next vacation will be somewhere outside of the country, or at least to a corner of it that we haven’t been to and isn’t like a disney or gatlinburg type place.
I blew my 20s in dead end jobs and an inappropriate age gap relationship with an older married woman AMA
I moved to nyc at 21 and lived there for 5 years. It changes you inside and out, especially if you moved from a soulless & sheltered suburb like I did. It wakes you up. I’m so grateful to have lived there when I did, I think I’m a much different and better person for it. Enjoy it!!
34 year old living in NYC here. I moved here when I was 27 and have felt a lot of the same things that you’re describing. I went to law school right out of college and kind of accepted that the fun in my life was over. Then I moved here after working for several years and started to feel like maybe I didn’t even know how to have fun in the first place. There’s just an infinite amount of ways to explore whatever interests you here. It can be really overwhelming honestly. I resonate with you saying it feels humiliating to be discovering an appetite for life now, but I think it’s just part of the weirdness of aging. So yeah maybe some standard narcissistic panic, but you’re in the right place to indulge it.
I’m having this realization myself a few months shy of 30. Also in nyc but have been for five years.
In my case I was always been burdened by self doubt, depression, toxic relationships, and lack of confidence. I’m suddenly past that but don’t feel regret. There’s no point to mourn the past
I turned 30 this year and don't really feel like I wasted my 20s but I also prioritized doing cool shit over having a career for better or for worst
This is my issue with college. It creates this fanatasy where making good grades and checking boxes is the ultimate achievement in life, so when you actually go out into the world and realize there's no set curriculum or pathway towards success, which is subjective anyways because sometimes it's societal while other times it's spiritual, you feel kinda lost. I had a friend who graduated with a pretty solid GPA in CS and now makes 6 figures working at a fintech company, but she feels lost even though she lives in a big city with lots of things to do. She also never really developed a personality or interests of her own, so I encouraged her to take guitar lessons at a nonprofit I interned at in the same city.
The opposite was true for me though. I felt like I was never good enough in college because I avoided all the money making paths like consulting and IB that my elite school offered. I also had a pretty decent GPA in college, but not enough to avoid writing an addendum for law school applications. That being said, the amazing thing about post-graduation is the freedom to pursue whatever I want intellectually. For the first time in a long time, I feel like myself.
Idk a lot of the people I meet in their 20s who seem like they have it all figured out just have a lot of hubris because of the internet, TikTok especially.
I like to say, imagine how boring it would be to have your life figured out in your 20s.
I am 31 and feel this way. I finally want to move out of my home city (I want to move to London or China (job allows both very easily), but my perfect lovely girlfriend can’t because of her mom, and doesn’t want to do long distance. Every day I have the thought and regret of wasting time not moving away.
What kind of job do you have?
Teacher from English school system
As someone in their twenties right now what do you wish you did?
Tbh spending in 20s surrounded by those overs hurts is never good for mental health at least for me. You’re in a better position to filter out the noises and figure out what you truly want to pursue in life. I wish I lived in nyc during my 30s
yeah thats why no one likes tech bros. BORING
99% ppl r bullshiters
About to turn 31 and I have almost no professional experience and I wanna move to nyc ☺️😝
I would do it, only if you are are a risk taker.
Did a similar thing when i was 28. So worth it, wish i did it earlier but that’s life. Doesn’t matter how you got here, you’re here now, enjoy it
People don't suddenly change their personalities and habits after turning 30. Maybe temporarily, but not forever.
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and at 50 you will buy a fast car
I’ve already learned a lot in my first year in NYC. It’s competitive for everything (dating included), but that’s also what makes it such a good place to grow.