No, You Don’t Have To Be Successful By 30
You’re rushing because society and media have brainwashed you
I thought I was going to die at 30.
I have no idea how this obnoxious thought crept into my mind and swept away the peace and contentment from my life.
As a perfectly healthy 27-year-old, I enjoyed my 9–5 and creating content on the side. I was independent, and I had done a few things I was proud of. I had no complaint in my life (Other than I was single and stuck at home, but that story for another time)
I somehow got into the pseudo-death cave or what everyone calls a quarter-life crisis. Was it really a quarter-life crisis? I don’t know.
What I know is that it was a horrible chapter of my life. I was getting anxiety attacks now and then. I had trouble accepting that I will be turning 30 in three years with no success or Shark Tank appearance.
What will I tell God if I don’t make it to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list?
Who’s going to marry me if I am not the most successful person in the room?
How will I look in the mirror if I am not a bestselling author before I turn 30?
It made me feel like a loser.
Where’s The Foreplay?
I have been rushing ever since I turned 26. There was a finish line in my head that I had to reach before turning 30. It was my north star. I lived as if those were the last few years of my life, and I will be disappearing with Thanos snap.
People say music can heal you. I am yet to experience that, but there was a Billy Joel song that calmed me down. It made it clear that I was running a race and Billy Joel was asking me to calm down in those 3.30 minutes.
Slow down you crazy child You’re so ambitious for a juvenile But then if you’re so smart tell me, Why are you still so afraid?
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about? You better cool it off before you burn it out You got so much to do and only So many hours in a day
Even with 3 years at my disposal, I was living like it was the end. I had this urgency, an invisible pressure to be successful and settled down by 30.
I don’t completely blame myself. Society had primed me for this ever since I was born. In Indian culture, you get married right after getting a decent job and have babies for your grandparents to play with.
Nobody cares if you cry in your office bathroom every day, they fancy the mask you wear during the parties coming in a lambo and going back to your condo.
The stories of prodigies like Zuckerberg from Facebook or Austin Russell of Luminar Technologies, who built unicorns before turning 30, inspire ambitious people like me. But not all of us can build companies in college or after dropping out.
We need more experience to find the right idea to work upon.
We need to live more to find out what we truly want to do with our lives. I haven't experimented enough to know what problem I want to solve. What cause I want to support for the rest of my life. As Steve Jobs stated in one of his interviews.
“If your life experiences are same as everybody's, you’ll be building the same thing, and you’ll create the same connections.”
Without living these peculiar and exclusive experiences, it’s hard to find our calling.
If we only wait for the orgasm, we’ll never enjoy the foreplay.
What’s The Hurry About?
A week-long of self-reflection made clear that it was societal pressure that made me feel inadequate.
The rat race to become better than people around you, the rate race to be the first one in my family or friend circle to become a millionaire or to get married. The flaw in this plan is the reason mental issues are rampant in young people.
Seeing my friends in the same place made me realize it wasn’t just about me; it was about everyone in that age group. We’re trying to achieve these things for the wrong reasons. Because if you are really in the game to build wealth and do something you enjoy, you don’t worry about the result.
This Business Insider article takes a typical self-made millionaire at least 32 years to get rich. Building wealth takes time. According to data, 80% of the self-made millionaire in the same study did not become wealthy until after age 50.
There’s no race for wealth; if you provide the value, you can become wealthy. It’s the rat race that wants us to fasten our seatbelts. Because all other rats are also running a race like us, and they have no idea about it.
People who want to do something do it irrespective of their age.
They take action when they find their calling or get struck by an idea.
American poetry writer and author Tony Morrison started writing at 40. In 1993, she became the first African-American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The famous Lord of the Rings series was the brainchild of JRR Tolkien, who started writing at 45. Socialite, Chef and entrepreneur Martha Stewart built her first business in her mid-thirties.
Yet we believed when someone told us that dreams have to end at 30.
Life Is Not a Sprint. It’s A Marathon
If you’re a regular reader on Medium, you’d have read this corny line a bunch of times. The reason it’s been shared massively was because it is 100% valid.
My anxiety attacks and the pressure stemmed from the idea that life was going to end at 30. I mistook it as a sprint when it was is a marathon.
I ignored the opportunities that might knock at my door in the later years of my career. I became oblivious to what I could achieve and experience after the so-called youthful years of my life.
It backfired poorly as I couldn’t even enjoy the present days worrying about the future—rookie mistake.
Philosopher and investor Naval Ravikant talk about how all the great things in life result from compounding: your relationship, building start-ups, or even friendships.
Life is a compounding game. It takes time to create things, especially when it’s a business or a life that you get excited to live every day. People who have to put every brick to build a life take years to reach their goals.
It’s not about winning the first round; and it’s about enduring and challenging throughout the marathon to reach the finish line. The best thing about life is you don’t compete with anyone else but yourself.
“Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.”
I am my own competition, and I can wear my marathon shoes whenever I want has brought a lot of relief.
As long as you have dreams and you’re breathing, there’s still time.
Parting Thoughts
Remember when we were 11 and used to think 16 was old? Remember when we were 16 and used to think 21 was old? Remember when we were 21 and used to think 26 was old? Remember when we were 26 and used to think 30 was old?
Yeah, you get the point.
You’re as old as you feel. I felt OLD when I didn’t understand this concept, and now I feel my age in fact even younger. And I am not worried about entering the new decade anymore.
From what I have seen and heard, it gets better. Life gets better.
Your ideas get mature, you get serious about your passion. Your path becomes clear. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself and spoil the last few years of your 20s.
As much as I wrote this for someone in their late 20s, I wrote this for myself. It’s been tough, but I am still young, and I have got plenty of time.
Life doesn’t end at 30. It begins at 30.
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