This is something I’ve been struggling a lot with and having a hard time with, was really hoping if any brothers could provide any insight. So I just turned 30 and naturally I’ve been doing some thinking about the past couple of years since I graduated college (8) and I realize that most of them have been a wash. I’m not a *complete* failure but there have been many aspects of my life that if you went back to me at 18 and ask me the question “do you think you would still have a problem with this” and I would easily reply “nah”.
There’s a lot of things that I didn’t do in my 20s that would have set me up well for now. I didn’t really have a season of life where I could just “travel” and explore the world, I didn’t live in other cities (still live at home due to long stretches of under/unemployment), didn’t hookup with anyone (my dating experience is practically nil), didn’t have a good social circle – so many things. I can’t really relate to a lot of people my age who said they “got it out of their system”. Now, I’m no longer a young man and the next pit stop is 40.
While I am in really good shape and have a good job, I realize I desperately need to get my shit together in various areas. I didn’t really get to experience and properly say “goodbye” to my youth, even my 30th birthday was pretty quiet.
I know the only thing I can really do is to move forward in life but I wanted to find some way to close this psychological gap.
Does anyone have any advice?
42 comments
You don’t miss out per se, you move on. Just like an adult had no desire to play with children’s toys anymore, you move on from those things you found desirable during your youth. Live and let go.
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You only missed ways to fuck up your life. As soon as you realize this you can let go and be grateful for what you have now.
Your time of youth was the foundation of your adult life. Discarding it is counterproductive. Build on top of the experience so you can have a grasp of what adult life you want to live in.
Just keep rolling, man. You’ve got years ahead of you to grow something beautiful.
Have you considered taking a backpacking trip? I went to Thailand when I turned 30 and it was my first backpacking trip overseas. So glad I did and maybe that’s what you need (or something like it). There are no rules to things just because we’re a certain age. Now I try to balance my life with boring adult things *and* planning awesome backpacking trips.
My advice is don’t start running around trying to fill the “void” or you will create one and fall off your path a little with things that are designed to back your dopamine system.
Do what you find is fun, then plan to make it a little more exciting than the vanilla you would usually accept.
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I’m in the same boat as you and sadly I don’t have an answer of how to resolve what has been lost. I am now 51 and nearly 2.5 years ago I had a major d-day realisation that something was wrong with my life. To cut a long story short, I discovered I had a fearful avoidant attachment. Sadly, this was caused by emotional neglect in childhood. I couldn’t understand how this had happened because I remember having a great childhood. But it happened and I know what exactly caused it for me. The problem is that this leads on to abandonment issues where your nervous system tries to stop you from attaching to anyone. And it does this by creating distancing strategies like being a workaholic, etc… I think there’s a chance you are avoidant and sadly, you ended up missing out, particularly with dating. There’s a lot to say… do the following attachment test below, if you are avoidant, I can provide more detailed information and resources to checkout:
https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com
This is a concise description of Avoidant Attachment by Maya Diamond’s podcast:
https://empowerlove.us/what-is-your-attachment-style-part-2-avoidant-attachment-009/
Dude 30 is the new 20 ! Approach the same things in life with more wisdom and experience, leading to better outcomes.
> I realize I desperately need to get my shit together in various areas.
Then make this your focus – not the unchangeable past.
It sounds like you would benefit from taking a strategic ‘look’ at you and your life to identify a better fit between you and your world
The end point is to live your authentic life – supporting you in applying your character strengths to your flow activities to create meaning for you and value for others. This takes quite a few threads to be pulled together.
A typical route would start with a VIA strengths analysis, values elicitation, beliefs evaluation and development before shifting the focus to the future to develop a series of strategic goals. Alongside this, we build the client’s ability with self-hypnosis to support them in sustaining their long-term wellbeing and living their best life.
Well, for one thing, what you didn’t do, you didn’t do. That is in the past now, and you can’t change it. But staying focused (other than for learning from it) on that is a good way to waste the time you do have available for you now.
At 30 you are still very young, and you have pretty much all the potentials. I am almost 37, and I moved to another country at 31. I travelled a lot, met new people, got laid a ton, started and failed at a few relationships, and finally met my girlfriend who I love and live with.
Don’t see your 20s as a gap to be closed. Accept them, learn from them. They made you who you are today, in your words, a guy in good shape, with a good job, who wants more out of life. Turn your 30s into something you like, so that when you turn 40 you don’t think to yourself “shit, I spent my 30s trying to psychologically close my 20s gap”.
Good luck!
I liked the comment that 30 is the new 20 and in some respects, that is very true. Where 70 years ago at 18 you would be working at the factory or on the farm. Then 40 years ago (my bracket) you would roll out of college with a degree and have your choice of good career jobs, Today it takes most guys a few trips down a dead end rabbit trail after college to find something that clicks.
A few things seem to be absent. First, what about your friends and hobbies/activities? I would say this coming year write down a few things that you will work to develop. First, something that builds relationships. It may be an athletic endeavor, cycling, hiking, softball, etc… a place where guys connect not just in the sport but in doing life together. Or another hobby collecting, cars, etc…. Second, where do you serve? At the core of significance in life is how we make a difference in others lives. This may be in mentoring, tutoring, helping the elderly, serving in a church ministry (that also connects back to social). This is a great way to create connections that may come to friendships.
Not surprisingly, these also become the places where you meet women in a natural way to get to know people apart from the pressure of dating. This also creates opportunities to find people to travel and do interesting things with.
The secret to successful living at any age is turning your life out. It makes you much more interesting, engaged, and attractive as someone to date.
It’s never too late. You can do anything at anytime. Being 30 certainly does not stop you from moving to a new city or hooking up with strangers.
I know this conundrum well. I experienced it in my own way; I missed out on a lot because I spent my college years and early 20s in a really bad abusive relationship, then sort of letting people push me around in other areas of life, living in my shell until I was about 26-27. The feeling of having missed out (and also having fallen behind my peers because of it) used to really eat at me and be a major source of distress. I started feeling this way, plus this fear that I would soon be “too old” to do anything about it, when I was about 23 (!!!). I think I only really got over it after turning 30. As part of the process, I took some concrete steps to pursue the things I felt like I missed out on (especially dating/hooking up, and travel), and I had some success then got interrupted by COVID. That was a crushing existential blow for me that felt like a cruel trick of fate. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing; I needed to slow down and I was becoming kind of a shitty person in my desperate pursuit of more fun, more belt notches, more novelty etc.
The FOMO and inferiority that comes from years and years of built up frustration and loss can become like an unfillable hole inside. For me it was like I needed a bigger and bigger triumph to “catch up”: it wasn’t enough to be more social and date people, I needed to party every weekend and fuck at least 50 women or I’d feel like a loser. It wasn’t enough to move somewhere new and try out new opportunities, I needed to drop everything and start over and move to New York and Be Somebody, or I was just settling and missing out on life. When I did start having new experiences and making progress, I would move the goalposts immediately and find ways to make my triumphs not count. It became a grind and it wasn’t even all that enjoyable. My pursuit of these things was less out of a genuine desire for them and more out of a way to use them to (temporarily) relieve anxiety and feelings of inferiority, which only ended up feeding said feelings. It’s a weird thing to be pursuing fun in the least fun way possible, but that’s kind of what it amounts to. I don’t know if any of that sounds familiar to you, but it’s something to watch out for.
This sub selects for a specific type of person, and reading it isn’t all that reassuring when you feel this way. Guys on here are like “yeah once you’re over 27 your back hurts and you have zero friends and you can’t stay up past 9pm and one beer makes you shit yourself” and no disrespect to people for whom that’s the case but I think they’re a minority in real life. All of these things you feel you missed out on are things you can have in your 30s or even 40s; often you can even have better versions of them because you won’t be doing them as a stupid kid. I turned 31 this year, and yesterday I went out to a concert with my friends and got drunk and did drugs and danced with attractive women (could’ve taken one home but I’m in a relationship). The biggest difference between doing that at 31 vs 21 or even 25 was that nobody was puking, sobbing, starting a fight, preoccupied with being “cool,” etc. so it was actually more fun than it was ten years ago. Same goes for hooking up; people are down for casual stuff at any given age and it’s actually more enjoyable when they’re more mature.
I could say a lot on this subject, because it really tortured me for years and I’ve spent the better part of the pandemic processing it. But all in all I think it’s about figuring out what “moving forward” means to you. It’s futile to try and fight the past (see the whole falling behind/triumph thing), but if there are areas that you feel your life is lacking you can pursue satisfaction in them in the present. It is YOUR life and you have the right to choose happiness and fulfillment, whatever that means to you. You don’t have to give up on yourself just because of some vague arbitrary notion of developmental milestones. Especially now when the world is kind of falling apart and lots of people’s lives are on hold. You may also find that as you’re more grounded and appreciating the present, you will think of your past differently; it’s very easy to minimize accomplishments and devalue yourself with comparisons to others (and these comparisons are often idealized anyway, comparing their outsides to your insides). I hope all of this can become more accessible to you.
Society massively hypes up youth. Not for what it was but for what we imagine it could have been. Most of that… is just fantasy.
Your twenties are not the decade where “it all happens”, or where you lay the groundwork for the rest of your career. It is the decade where you have the least amount of knowledge and experience. The decade where you struggle with money, relationships don’t last, you realise that most of your job was not taught in school…
And by age 30 you look back at it and wonder where all the glamour was. The cocktail parties with random celebrities. The opportunity to speak in front of the board. The money, the power, the fame… You may think you missed out, but no.
It was always just a fantasy. Something sold to you by people who didn’t experience it either but like to fantasise about it.
That may sound depressing, but it’s not. It is actually good news. You did not miss out on, you simply lived. In life, most of us get to build up step by step. And along the way, we try a lot of things and that is how we figure out what we want and what we don’t.
Life gets better. Not because of some magical movie montage, but because we put in the work day by day. And life is not something that happens in a year or when you achieve X. It happens today, here and now.
So, what is good about your life? Well, you made it to 30. And you have a college education, which puts you ahead. I’m not reading anything about a failing marriage, so you lucked out on that. You don’t write about issues with alcohol or drugs, or gambling debts… Sounds like you avoided most of the pitfalls of your twenties. This puts you in a great position to take on your thirties.
Just FYI, every single year of my thirties was better than any single year of my twenties. My forties started strong too…
Now what? Well, figure out what you want. You do this by trying things and figuring out what you don’t want. Every now and then you will try something and find that you don’t hate it. In fact, that you don’t mind doing more of it. And that, via negativa, is how you can actually figure out what you want.
But don’t see this as something to get out of the way. No, this is the actual point. Because you will change too and even if you knew exactly what you wanted, it wouldn’t stay the same. That is the point. Figuring out what you want, then going for it. Rinse. Repeat.
You’re still young. Being an adult is a lot of fun too. Make a bucket list and get to work on it.
I don’t understand, really. You are 30, not 60. You are still young. You have a good job and are in shape. You wanna hookup with different women? Well your 30’s are your prime so make it happen! I’m 33 and have dated 20 year olds all the way to 40 year olds. You said you want to travel? Well you say you have a good job so make it happen. No time for excuses and feeling sorry for yourself. Get your ass out there.
***You are never too old to have a second childhood.***
A variation of this post comes up about once a day —
“I am XX years old and I feel like life has passed me by because I missed out on XYZ.”
First thing to realize is that this is obviously a feeling a lot of people share. You’re not alone.
Second thing to realize is that you don’t really have the resources to go have a bunch of crazy travel adventures in your 20s. The ones that do are on daddy’s money. If you come out of your 20’s with a college degree, your health, and having gone on a couple of vacations, you’re doing so much better than 90% of the population. Even moreso if you managed to read a couple of books, pick up a skill or a hobby, or have a great relationship with your family.
Your 30s are your time to do whatever you want to do with the foundation you discovered in your 20s. Build a house, start a relationship, etc. etc. etc…. or do none of these things.
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Comparing yourself to others will always result in sadness. They have their own problems.
Your not even half way thru your life bro.
You not too old to go out and do absolutely whatever you want.
People that say that kinda thing like “got in out of my system” or “I’m not young anymore, too old to do that” are just stuck, sad and going thru the motions.
Only you can do it for yourself.
If you wanna travel and you wanna wing man on the girl hunt then come down here to New Zealand and I’ll show you what wasting your youth is
You spend your twenties and thirties becoming who you are. Make the changes you want to make.
Start now. It’s only too late if you never start. Look forward, not back.
Make a list of what you want to do or accomplish. All of them. Add to the list as you think of things. Divide the list into things you can do in a 3 day time frame, 4-10 days time frame, and longer (maybe things you have to save money for). Events that are accomplished in a stepwise manner, like “learn to cook food from around the world,” goes on the 1-3 day list since you cook one meal at a time to become accomplished.
Just start the list. It is not a task list; it is an accomplishment or event list. Do 1-2 events every week to give yourself something to look forward to.
The good news is that you can still do those things in your 30s
I’m with you. Only saving grace is I lucked into a decent paying job I more or less enjoy.
I had a late start and graduated (undergrad) at 31. After that, I bought a ticket to Japan and started hunting for jobs. Ended up working in a couple different industries and lived in various places in Asia for about 5 years. Came back and finished my master’s at 40.
It’s not too late to do anything.
I’m in my mid 40’s and I still do things “young” people do. I go party, and I have tons of fun. You’re so young it’s absurd you think your “young” years are gone.
Find things you think are fun, could be skiing, surfing, skateboarding, go learn some cool dance in dance classes, travel the world, you got so much time still!
Go on a trip this weekend. Repeat this every 2 weeks for a year+. Optionally stop after a year or continue forever.
I got divorced at 29. I definitely enjoyed my youth and whatnot, but that was a big wake up call for me. I made an effort to do new things, spend more time with my friends and basically never said “no” to an idea (a trip, a night out, etc.) unless I had a really good excuse. It’s not too late to hit the reset button and start pursuing the things that make you happy, instead of what you think you’re supposed to do next.
38 and my life is better than ever. when I turned 30 I was very depressed and unhealthy and didn’t want to live to 40.
the things that helped me were realizing you can choose your thoughts, choose your future, choose your social life, choose to work towards success, love, a better future.
they’re not wishes to be granted, but long roads to walk, sure – but there are *plenty* of people who didn’t find success until their 40s.
if you’re depressed, and it sounds like you might be, seek the best help you can.
I feel the same as you, on the edge of being 32. Although we all know it’s impossible to do anything about the past, it’s sooo difficult to let go of the fact that you wasted your 20’s. While others were learning, growing and getting experience in various life topics, you were just existing, doing nothing to grow, learn & experience life fully, which does set you back.
The truth is, that time is lost, all you can do now is focus on the present & the future because ideally, you’ll be alive for another 50 years. Do you want to spend those 50 years the way you spent your 20’s? Or do you want to spend it taking risks, trying new things and living rather than existing?
Dude. 30’s are way better than 20’s if you’re in good health and have a good job. You’re in a great position to do anything you feel is missing from your life.
Didn’t travel in your 20’s? What’s stopping you now?
Don’t have much dating experience? It’s easier than ever to meet people now (COVID notwithstanding) and you’ve got two of the most important boxes checked already. All you need to do now is be groomed, interesting, and willing to listen. Those aren’t that difficult.
Don’t own a home? This is not on you, your age, or your level of success- this is a product of market forces almost totally outside your control. Many, many people can’t afford to buy a house at 30, let alone in their 20’s. Let yourself off the hook.
If you’ve recently turned 30, what the hell are you doing thinking about 40 already? Long-term planning is good, but this is not the way- that’s a whole ‘nother topic. Live in the now.
I give my idea of what I wanted my youth to be to everyone. Love, make smiles show them what you wanted as a kid. All I can do. Its rough because people are too tough for love. I do not let rejection or disapproval effect me. A lot of people stand against Unconditional love, or so it seems….
>I didn’t really have a season of life where I could just “travel” and explore the world, I didn’t live in other cities (still live at home due to long stretches of under/unemployment), didn’t hookup with anyone (my dating experience is practically nil), didn’t have a good social circle – so many things.
Many didn’t.
Society tells us we missed out on not enjoying everything, but if you wanted these things you’d have explored. You preferred what you had and focused on what you wanted.
If you want these things today you’re young! You can plan to do them all in a few months.
> I can’t really relate to a lot of people my age who said they “got it out of their system”.
You just chose the harder path: personal responsibility. You can relate but chose to focus on your future.
These aren’t unrelatable situations. They just have more “fun” stories. Don’t discredit your experiences, they’re just as interesting. And if you want these, the world is waiting for you to experience them.
You just have to. Life will always deal you wounds you can’t completely heal.
I agree with other comments about the commercialization of youth. If you look at all the beer commercials it is a 100% case of expectations vs reality. If you have ever been partying where everyone is drunk, usually drama ensues and most of the time some really crappy stuff happens. In any case, start that bucket list and get it done. You are young, smart, healthy… You’ve got it made compared to most people that are on this planet currently or have ever lived percentage wise. People live longer now. I feel like maybe even 30-40 years ago if you were 50 and over you were an old man. Now a days, if you take care of yourself, you can have a long healthy life up to 80’s and do fun things all the while. Start a retirement account and save up! Find some nice ladies to date and make one very happy. If you decide to have kids, give it your 500% and make that your goal in life. Good Luck!
You didn’t miss anything important. At 30 I was a virgin, just out of my second BA, and unemployed for a year, living with my parents.
Now I’m married with a 2 year old, making $90k+.
Biggest piece of advice I can give is to stop letting indecision and fear guide you all the time. It still runs my life like 60% of the time, but that 40% is the key. I met my wife because I said “fuck it, I’ll send her a message even if I know she won’t reply. What do I actually lose if she ignores it?”
My career is in a field I literally failed in college. Once I started treating my career like a mercinary relationship and not a N LTR, I made actual money.
Stop worry g what others think about you. Most of the time, others don’t think about you at all – they’re too worried about what others think about them.
Good luck man. You can do it.
I can tell you one thing its exactly how i feel. But the one thing that helps is realizing its not actually as bad as it could be.
I was really popular, good looking always doing something. But my grades were horrible. I was the kid to “just get to graduation.” Then i became a drug addict for 7-10 years. I destroyed my body,friends,family,mind,financials, credit etc.
Years later the hardest part is being 30 being a let down to myself. But i have a great job finally great normal hours and benefits with career growth. And even though my credit is still not great and I occasionally still deal with nuances surrounding that. I was never arrested and still got an honorable discharge. Also not having a degree or specialized field hurts i can attest first hand. And you have that.
There was quite a bit too that i missed out on in my early 20s. But life is way better in control. You can actually do everything everyone talks about because you have the financials to do so. Im more of a home body myself now, not liking to waste money. I like to invest now. But if you want to start meeting people its as easy as going to the park, joining a facebook group etc.
Kinda like being a Virgin, dont let it consume you. It will come, let it happen. All you can do is put yourself in the situations you want. Its hard stumbling upon friends, but its just like asking a girl out. Just ask if they want to do something (drinks, hobbies, events) whats the worst that can happen? They say no?
Good luck friend. Theres people alot worse out their. That have 10x what I do. And my life is pretty good today. Hope you find your peace
As long as YOU are happy, literally nothing else matters
Find your own joy in life, whatever it may be.
Not everyone finds joy from Traveling, or sleeping around, or having a super active social life.
Focus yourself inward.
Mindfulness training. Be present. Go.
First of, you’re only 30. You’re still *in* your youth.
But, having said that, I know how you feel. When I hit 40, I hit a classic “oh, no my youth is over” mid-life crisis. One useful thing I did was to write a list of things I want to do before I turned 50. The last decade is already behind me. There’s nothing I can do about it. But I have a *ton* of control over the decade in front of me. Focusing on that always feels better because it’s empowering.