30's Are The New Confident
With a looming birthday in the wings, I have recently begun thinking about my life and its state of affairs. At the age of 37, I've been able to experience a few major life events, a plethora of not so major events and in between I've found a way to learn from them all. These are the top five lessons that have stood true throughout all of my 30's and even more so as I creep closer into my 40's.
1. Life is not a race, and you are not competing against anyone except yourself. My early years into adulthood felt very chaotic and forced. The act of going to college and being told to choose what I wanted to be doing when I was 50 had always seemed so unrealistic to me. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to do 20 years from that moment if I had just spent the past 12 years learning information that someone else wanted me to learn? Yes the programs in college were important and on occasion very interesting, however being placed in a specialized program so early on didn't allow for me to really explore my own interests or talents. It wasn't until almost 20 years later that I returned to academia with a fresh approach, taking survey courses for the joy of learning and not a degree, that I was finally able to start getting a feel for where my passions lye.
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1. Life is not a race, and you are not competing against anyone except yourself. My early years into adulthood felt very chaotic and forced. The act of going to college and being told to choose what I wanted to be doing when I was 50 had always seemed so unrealistic to me. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to do 20 years from that moment if I had just spent the past 12 years learning information that someone else wanted me to learn? Yes the programs in college were important and on occasion very interesting, however being placed in a specialized program so early on didn't allow for me to really explore my own interests or talents. It wasn't until almost 20 years later that I returned to academia with a fresh approach, taking survey courses for the joy of learning and not a degree, that I was finally able to start getting a feel for where my passions lye.
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