Thirty Things I Learned by the Time I Turned Thirty

 

Today I turn thirty. Some thoughts.

1. Alcohol makes a lot of things better. It also makes some very important things much worse.
2. The benefits of allowing yourself to be vulnerable far outweigh the risks. You risk way more by keeping yourself hidden.
3. Women are perfect. There’s no quicker way to test a man’s character than by discerning whether he knows this fact. Likewise, there’s no quicker way to tell that he’s a shitty person than by discovering he has no respect for them.
4. The worst thing that will happen if you love someone and they don’t love you back is that they won’t love you back. It’s no reason to stop loving people, or to guard your love.
5. Seasons three through nine of The Simpsons are the funniest things mankind has ever produced.
6. There is a difference between settling down and settling.
7. Activism isn’t something you just naturally have to outgrow as you get older, like living in your room at your parents’ house or believing in Santa Claus. On the contrary, dedication to a cause—selflessness—is one of the few things that keeps you grounded and sane.
8. On that topic, being kind to animals—by giving them a home, by not eating or wearing them—is the easiest form of activism there is, so easy that I still don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it, if not for the animals’ sake than just to feel good about yourself.
9. Reading is vital. Every free minute you have, you should be reading. Read on the subway, read on your lunch hour, read at stoplights. To quote Jon Waters, don’t ever have sex with someone who doesn’t read.
10. There is no such thing as a simple person. Even the people who seem simple seem that way for complex reasons. Never just say, People suck. Mean people, small-minded people, rude people, stupid people—they are all made up of the complicated fabric that is a person. Consider—truly consider—everyone.
11. Nostalgia is a good thing so long as you recognize it as nostalgia. If you mistake it for grief, for the passing of the best days you’ll ever have, it’s dangerous.
12. Everyone gets over break-ups in their own way. Just because your exes are doing it differently than you doesn’t mean they didn’t care.
13. You are not, demonstrably not, the center of the world and neither are your problems.
14. There are few crimes worse than hording your money. There’s nothing wrong with making lots of money, unless you keep it to yourself. Give to people on the street. Give to a noble cause. Give.
15. It’s very possible to have good sex without love, but it’s impossible to have great sex without it.
16. Getting paid meagerly doesn’t feel so meager if you love your job. Likewise, all the money in the world feels like not enough if you don’t.
17. You’re going to die. There’s no getting around it.
18. Fast food, junk food, processed food, genetically modified food—it isn’t just bad for you, it’s poison. It’s insane that companies are allowed to sell it and we’re allowed to eat it. Another thing that’s so easy to stop doing that I don’t see why more people don’t.
19. Never complain that your degree is “worthless”—especially not just because your job is unrelated to it. Getting an education solely for the paycheck is like travelling to Paris solely for the frequent flier miles. It misses the point. An education is the most valuable thing on the planet to get and you’re lucky to have gotten one. You learned. Be grateful. Appreciate it.
20. Museums and libraries are free. Take advantage of that. It’s a small miracle that’s easy to take for granted.
21. Pretty people can be very ugly. This is remarkably and consistently easy to forget.
22. It’s important to have the kind of friend you can go months without talking to without missing a beat, but even more important to have the kind of friend who’ll answer every time you call.
23. Not only can men and women be friends—When Harry Met Sally was super wrong—but they should. If you find a member of the opposite sex who you can be close to without sex getting in the way, it’s apt to be the most rewarding relationship of your life.
24. It’s never a good idea to get a tattoo of a band, even if their first two albums are near-genius (thanks a lot, Weezer).
25. Believing that religious people are inherently small-minded is just as ignorant as believing faithless people are. It’s important to have faith in something, regardless of your religious beliefs. Faith in something bigger than yourself is vital to the health of your soul.
26. The only thing more frustrating than a person with bad taste in film is a person with good taste in film who won’t shut up about it. Even so, just because a person has informed opinions about art doesn’t make him pretentious. Just saying.
27. Searching for the ideal partner is pointless. There’s only one ideal person in the world. She lives in Vancouver and I call dibs.
28. If you can find one friend who’ll sit with you for eight hours at a bar, listen to your problems, comment on a short story you’ve just written, and buy you a round, you don’t really need a lot of other friends.
29. Your family is the key to who you are. Talk to them often and shut none of them out, if only to know yourself better.
30. And finally: Thirty isn’t really that old. Right?…right?

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