In mere weeks I will be turning the ripe young ish age of 37. Some realization I’ve come to terms with:
- The quarter century crisis is far, far in the rear few mirror. Anyone over 30 knows the nagging voice in your head that says these are things I must do by 30 or I will end up an absolute failure of a person.
- Most of my biggest fears in life have come and gone. In a word, ‘perspective’. A lot of my fears stemmed around people who later I realized either didn’t care about me nearly as much as I thought they would. Or a unhealthy mismatch between living a lie and being an openly gay man. I came out 16 years ago,
- Nothing compares to my general skepticism of politics both left and right is a filter for which I view any single word uttered by a politician. The older you get, the more the bullshit meter goes up.
- I’m no longer the new and upcoming generation. Millennials aren’t a lost cause yet, but some have dug theirselves so deeply into a hole, hoping the government bails them out or provides UBI, etc. is their best shot.
- My body is not necessarily able to catch up with my mind. I think of being able to accomplish superhuman or computational type feats similar to an android. I can’t just load a program into my brain and pick things up like that. It all takes time and energy. My brain after 8 hours of work, a few hour of downtime, and 1-2 hours of exercise just isn’t able to easily pick up complex tasks.
- It’s okay to be “normal”-ish. Not everyone is capable or would excel at becoming a multi-millionaire. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try out different revenue streams, and stay on top of all my investments.
- It’s not over until it’s over – See guys like David Goggins and Graham Stephan others who stayed driven and beat the odds. It’s a reminder that great things are possible if steady actions are taken. Everything else is a waste of time beyond some basic research and planning if you ask me. It’s easy to fall into a self help trap, thinking you’re achieving huge accomplishments when really the opposite is true.
I am thankful to earn a middle class salary, which is more than a lot of other people in America can say right now. My health is mostly good, I can walk on two feet, have a paid off car, no consumer debt, and can aggressively invest. I don’t have insomnia thinking about how to pay off insurmountable levels of debt. Also it looks like the pay cut I took a few months back will be reversed soon, so that’s always a good thing. I do want to branch out and live life at a higher level once all this COVID mess is over.
Last but not least I’m a fighter. It’s in my DNA. Lots of people in my family have been faced with obstacles far greater than mine. Almost bedtime again, apologies if there are a bunch of grammatical errors. I’ll end it with this….
What have you learned as you got older that has had a profound impact on how you see the world, relate to people, or handle things from day-to-day?
Debt Free Alpha 
2 responses to “Are We Limiting Ourselves?”
I’ll be turning 30 in January, and the closer it gets the less it bothers me. I can definitely relate to the feeling of feeling like a failure if I didn’t check certain boxes. I built it up in my head that if I didn’t meet certain goals or milestones by 30 that I wasn’t adulting correctly.
I’m not going to lie though-I still have some of those thoughts. I think Covid and working from home and not being around people has something to do with it. Being alone with just your thoughts can be a scary thing sometimes.
To answer your question-the one thing I have learned with age that has had a profound impact on how I see the world is how I react in situations and how I view others perceptions of me. Just last night, my partner and I were walking downtown as we’ve been trying to do more often and a car stopped at a red light and the people inside called us faggots, multiple times. They also then yelled “Trump 2020” and for a split second I panicked. This would have really bothered me in my younger years, heck even a few years ago. But I’ve been trying to not care so much what others think of me-it really is none of my business. My partner and I turned to each other and brushed it off. Together we have 2 mortgages, 3 cars, and between us make well over 6 figures annually. In the words of RuPaul, “Unless they pay your bills, pay them bitches no mind.” We are perfectly fine. Takes a lot more than some homophobic slurs to bring us down. We live in the south so this isn’t really super surprising, but still caught us off guard because it hasn’t happened to me as an adult. In the end I actually felt bad for the people because how terrible of a person can you be to scream that at random strangers? Anyways, enough of my tangent.
Keep on keeping on. Look forward to the next post!
Jeez, I’m not quite sure where to start. I didn’t start my long-term retirement portfolio until I turned 30. Had a clear opportunity to buy Apple and Amazon stock in my 20s but instead spent it on cars, tech, and offsetting my low paying jobs. Should’ve left Long Island at a much younger age to jumpstart my career. Like 24 vs 27 Easy to second guess previous choices in life.
Ditto on Covid, I think it’s making us all a little crazy. We are used to having distractions, between a commute, the person at work who is either flamboyant / outspoken / entertaining, looking forward to what we might have for lunch, occasional office gossip, everything…
I’m sorry to hear that you were verbally assaulted for just being outside and gay. Perspective does play a key role though, you may not be able to 100% control what happens but you can do your best to avoid or de-escalate wherever possible. Fortunately they just said that stuff and kept on going. Many of the people who are like that often are compensating for something lacking in their own lives. Maybe they are single / not getting any, don’t have a job / are poor, are miserable with how their lives are going, have a low IQ, or frustrated in other ways. I went to high school with a guy who called me that word in class and on the bus all the time. He’s got kids and is working as a low paying tourism clerk in Jamaica. I like to think he’s evolved but that’s also one of the most homophobic areas in the world. I digress. They aren’t doing a single thing for you or your partner. You’re on your way to crushing it and have way more important things to focus on. 🙂
Thanks for commenting, much appreciated as always!