Tonight I’m hanging out in my favorite pair of grey sweats watching Top Chef with Rich. It’s just a typical Friday night after a long work week. But the one thing that stands out for me about this Friday night is that this is the last Friday night of my 30’s. As of tomorrow my age will officially start with a 4. I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
Yesterday, a friend asked what advice I would give 30 year old me. I think he asked because he’s soon turning 30. The first thing that came time mind was that I’d tell myself to finish my book a lot faster. ‘What if you don’t writer books, then what would you tell yourself? What would you do different?’ he asked. And I really had to think about it. Would I do anything different than what 30 year old me did? I honestly don’t know that I would.
During that conversation yesterday I said that I try very hard not to live with regret, and I mean that. When I think back on the last 10 years I can’t deny I’ve had my share of ups and downs. There were times when I was tested and times when I celebrated, but I don’t think I would take any of it back. I was trying to figure a lot of things out in my 20’s – I was figuring out adulthood and parenthood all at the same time – but by the time I hit 30 I felt like I had some of it finally under control.
I decided awhile ago that we all have things we look back on and think ‘What the hell did I do that for?’ Instead of dwelling on those moments, letting them eat me up as regret, I decided to look at those moments as lessons. Rather than saying ‘What the hell did I just do?’ I can feel much better with a simple ‘Well, we’ve learned we should never do that one again’. By changing that one little statement I can look back on my 30’s and say I did pretty well and I learned a few lesson. So, bring it on 40. Let’s see how many lessons you can teach.
Cheers.