Welcome to the third floor. Wrinkles are starting to appear, divorces are the bread and butter… 30 is the new 20, I’m telling you. You just have to know how to embrace it.

Passive income matters

You start exploring all the different ways to earn passive income so you don’t feel obliged to work until retirement age. Also start dreaming about all the things you can do with that extra money and the possibility of reducing your working hours.

You wonder if “this is it”.

Most of us will spend our lives going to work and clocking in on a Friday to enjoy a relaxing weekend. But more than 10 years later, we start to wonder if this is what life is all about. Especially, if you’re living a Groundhog Day and ask if that’s enough for you. 

You wonder if you’re going to be happy doing the same job for another 20 or 30 years and that’s when you start to question if life could be better in some other way or with some other option that didn’t enter the equation at 20.

Marriages start to fall apart

I often talk to my friends who are still single about the dating list expanding in their late 30’s. This is because people who got married earlier are moving on, but with different partners. It is a reality that not all marriages will last. And the hard part is watching your friends go through the emotional toll of separation and divorce.

There is also the view of those who see you as the only one who is 30 years old but is not married and has no children. The labels, whatever it is, of what you are doing that is not socially stipulated.

You start to lose people

You start to appreciate life a bit more because anything can happen. Every day is a gift. And that’s the point, not to be guaranteed life for XX years. So while we have time, let’s spend it with the people who really matter.

30
30th birthday cupcake

Fertility or infertility is a taboo subject.

Having children, how many children to have, deciding that you don’t want to have children in the end… These are all very sensitive topics that need to be treated with caution. This is especially delicate when talking about infertility. 

No one talks about their struggles in getting pregnant and if you suspect someone is having difficulties, you better never dare to ask. Whether you want to have children or not, let people think what they want and do the same.

Your friendship circles get smaller

When you’re in high school or college, you probably spend most of your time with your friends. And that’s fine. But as people start to venture off on different paths, you may suddenly find that you start to lose common ground. Or if that’s not the case, it may be that life becomes so busy that you start to prioritise only the people you care about and who are closest to you.

You realise that you are getting older, and so are your parents.

Appreciation for parents increases with age. The time we spend together is limited and it is at this stage of life when you realise that it is not just that you and clothes get wrinkles, or that you reduce the time between visits to the hairdresser because you can’t stretch it out as long as you used to. 

The real drama of 30 is when you finally get to see that you are not alone, that the world is also growing up with you, and with it, your parents are also getting older.

They are the ones who took you out for a walk every day, the ones who fought, played and exhausted themselves until you were calm and happy. They are the ones who can’t do that anymore and just by looking into their eyes, you can see it.

This is probably one of the most painful aspects of turning 30: that tremendous dose of unknown reality.