You’re sitting at your parents’ house, waiting for your life to start. The last few years didn’t go the way that you planned, and you’re starting to feel like you’re stuck in a black hole you can’t escape. You’ve picked yourself up so many times, but as time seems to slip away with your unfulfilled milestones, you’re wondering how you’ll make it out.
You’re in your 30s, and you’re watching your former college classmates fulfill their dreams and wondering where you went wrong. You’re working in the same suburb that you lived in when you were 18, while your former classmates and friends travel the world and celebrate their successes. Every time you scroll through social media, someone else has gotten engaged or married, while you’re still learning how to love yourself.
Even though you may feel like you’ve fallen behind in life, you have to remember the battles that you’ve fought to get where you are right now. Every time you needed someone to save you, you saved yourself. You pulled yourself out of some of the darkest times of your life, and this time, you can do the same.
When we’re young, it’s easy to paint spectacular images of what our futures will look like — without thinking about the challenges that we may encounter along the way. We use ages as “deadlines” — as if we can no longer be successful or beautiful or happy once we pass certain life stages.
One of the most important things you will learn is that nothing happens once we hit those “big” milestones.
They loom over us like storms rolling in, letting us know that soon, we won’t be able to avoid the inevitable. But just like storms eventually pass, so too will all of those milestones.
Society teaches us to fear hitting milestones, as if our lives will end if we don’t reach perfection in tandem with them. But the truth is that there’s no difference between the last day of being 29 and the first day of being 30. When you turn 30, your life will carry on, and your other milestones won’t be any less important. When you turn 30, you won’t cease to be relevant, successful, happy, or attractive, no matter what society says about your age.
You don’t have to give up on yourself at 30 because our society makes you feel like you should.
There’s no reason to stop believing that you’ll find your dream job, your true love, or your ultimate success because you didn’t achieve that milestone by 30.
So yes, maybe you’re not where you hoped you would be at this point in your life. But that doesn’t mean that you’ll never fulfill your dreams. Please don’t let a date on a calendar tell you that your life is over. There is so much more to find beyond this milestone. Age simply marks time, not how successful you’ll be. You can still achieve all of your goals in your 30s and beyond.
Featured Photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash.
