45
votes
I just turned 29 last month, what are some things I should be thinking about before my 30s?
A preface, I'm a cisgender male so I don't really have a "biological clock" so to speak but I'm curious on what people have regretted not getting to, or regret not starting at an earlier age.
A couple of things to kick off discussion, I started saving for retirement early, and assuming that there's still some normalcy in the next 4 years (which... Is not looking great) is on of the things I really feel great about.
I also prioritized my health last year, and in 2023-2024 probably lost around 30 pounds which I consider an investment for my future as well.
You need to start taking care of everything more.
Skin - if you haven’t been taking skincare seriously, you should. It will deteriorate quickly if you don’t.
Exercise - you need more of it as you age. And I would aim higher than conventional American wisdom (if you’re American). A lot of people start going “well, I’m in my 30s, it’s normal for my joints to hurt” and it’s like… it’s not normal, or it doesn’t have to be anyway”.
Diet - lower alcohol intake for sure, more protein. The older, the more you need to watch it.
Weight - for longevity, it’s better to be on the lighter side of average. Even if it’s muscle. But muscle weight is better than fat weight, if you have other goals.
I would say, the main thing is that, outside of pre-existing conditions or injuries, you should NOT be feeling like a rotting zombie at 30, even at late 30s. You should feel good, and move good, and if that’s not happening it’s a good signal to focus more on health. Your later self will thank you dearly if you do.
I have to hop on a flight soon so I'll get to the rest of the comments later, but just commenting now a bit!
Skincare is a good callout, I've been prioritizing it recently as an addition to all my tattoo care that I have to do!
For exercise, I've been doing a lot of gym and lifting so it definitely has been helping. I also drink a lot less alcohol than other people in general and in my health arc I've been taking in more protein, and weight wise I've been trying to go down more! I used to do wrestling so I knew all the weight cutting unhealthily techniques and this last year I've been focusing on keeping it down (the holidays definitely haven't been helping)
Any advice on skin care?
At age 30 I started running and I have found a hobby I have enjoyed more than any I’ve tried before.
Last year, aged 31, I’ve started drawing and finally worked on a creative hobby as well.
Both things I would recommend people try out. Especially running will have a lasting positive impact on your stamina.
There’s also the diet factor, which I think people should not neglect. There’s tons of sources around. I can just say: after reading a lot into things, I’ve become plant based at age 30, from previously still eating meat.
First of all don't fall into the beauty industry's endless advertisements and new products and that you should use 20 creams and ointments and acids and and and every day.
A gentle face wash a couple of times a week - never exfoliate, scrub, or use pressure when washing your face though. This will damage the skin barrier. Use lotion every day and/or after every shower. Also always use sunscreen. Some people swear by using it every day of the year, even when it's overcast, because UV still gets through the clouds. I personally think it's quite overkill but definitely use it when it's sunny - depends on the climate you're in as well of course.
Skin care for the body - you can exfoliate once a week because everyone gets ashy. Don't do it too harshly still though. And also use lotion on your whole body and of course when necessary sunscreen on exposed areas!
visible light also causes photoaging, which sunscreen can protect against somewhat
It's also more important if you live somewhere with a lot of snow in the winter, because it reflects light, so even though it's not sunny, UV exposure in winter is still pretty high
Can confirm. The worse sunburn in my life was on my face while spring skiing. Between the altitude, the mid winter sun, the reflection of the sun of the snow, and the wind chill drying my skin... Ow.
Sunscreen for any extended time in the sun. There's sunsticks, which are like sticks of deoderant but sunscreen, which usually aren't as high SPF but definitely better than nothing and more convenient when you're in a hurry.
Get a cleanser and a moisturizer. The specific brands will vary greatly by person. You'll just have to try them out.
The r/SkincareAddiction wiki is a pretty helpful resource, check out the recommended routine.
Basically, as @smoontjes said, you only need a cleanser, moisturizer and sunscreen. Cleanser generally 1 or 2 times a day, moisturizer after every wash and sunscreen as often as possible when exposed to sun.
Extra products can be useful, but you should only get them if you have a specific concern you'd like to solve, like redness or mild acne or something else. Don't blindly buy every single thing that promises "youthful and supple skin" - research specific ingredients if you need something. I don't fully agree with @smoontjes on the "never exfoliate" part, I found chemical exfoliants pretty effective for me and didn't ruin the barrier, but again, they were used to address specific issues, not just as a result of wanting as much products as possible.
Friendship, camaraderie and social connections are important factors in health and mental health. I would try to build existing relationships and foster new ones to the extent possible. Our society doesn't make it easy.
Think about values and ethics. It doesn't have to be your primary job, but what do you want to contribute to, what do you see that needs to be done that you can help with?
Take stock of yourself compared to your younger self? What have you always wanted to do and haven't gotten around to yet? See if you can turn dreams into concrete plans or if you can identify obstacles in a way that helps you understand your situation better.
I feel like the social one is difficult for sure! I think I'm very lucky to have very different groups of friends that I've had since I was a child that I regularly keep in touch with, but making new friends is different nowadays for sure. Besides coworkers I feel like I haven't made new friends since college?
I'm actually doing some side project stuff that I'm hoping to open source soon actually! Besides that and donating those are the biggest things I've been trying to contribute to, but I'm definitely sure I can do more.
Haha "what have you always wanted to do" is my theme for this year, it's hard to think about to be honest but I've definitely been thinking about that a lot more recently.
Keep your mouth in good shape.
Get a sonicare toothbrush, buy some decent toothpaste, and floss every day or two. Buy some floss-picks if you don't like using the stringy floss. Take a few minutes to watch a YouTube video on proper sonicare operation, and proper flossing technique.
Your 50 year old mouth (and wallet) will thank you.
Definitely a proud "never had a cavity" club member and I floss every time I'm sitting around bored watching YouTube or shows actually haha. 100% recommend though, my dad has had dental work done and it's so expensive.
You may not have a biological clock, but your current or future partner likely does. I'd consider strongly whether parenting is part of your plan, and how old you want to be when your kid graduates high school. I started younger than you and I'll be done with kids when I'm in my early 50s. A friend of mine waited until he was my age so he'll be in his mid-60s when his current kid graduates high school, and his wife is pushing to have another baby.
Parenting has always been a, maybe if I find the right person kinda thing, so I definitely feel like I'd just go with it whenever I meet my future partner! My parents were 50 when they finished with me too and they had me pretty late I think.
I’m only ~6 years your senior so I don’t know how useful my thoughts will be, but…
Focus on health is a good start but if practical I’d recommend expanding that to fitness (if you haven’t already). I’m far from the perfect picture there but I am immensely thankful to my late-20s self for starting to work out at a gym for 1h 3x per week. I also got a trainer because I was absolutely clueless and didn’t want to hurt myself, and that ended up being a wise decision, because he had a background in physical therapy and was able to point exactly where my weak spots were and show me exactly how to deal with them. This wasn’t cheap but even years later after multiple lapses in working out, as a result my body is overall much happier now than it had been prior to starting to work out.
As for the biological clock thing… men aren’t as subject to it as women but there’s evidence that age of the father also plays a role in increased risk of defects and impairments. Personally, I worry about having enough energy (which declines with age) to be able to properly accommodate children once they’re older and becoming fully formed people. I wish I had been in a position where it was practical and responsible to start a family in my late 20s for that reason alone. This is a very personal issue though so I hesitate to position this as “advice”.
To be fair I kinda expected most people on Tildes to be from their 30s to 50s so all input is valuable!
Yes for sure! My focus on health definitely involves mental and physical as well, luckily I have some PT friends and friends in the medical field and a lot of friends that are basically addicted to the gym, so I'm pretty well equipped to take physical health into my 30s!
Hmmm that's true, I think the energy thing is a big thing for me. I'm not 100% sure about having kids yet, my dating profile still says "Open to Kids" haha so I feel like I'll get there when I get there.
As someone considerably older than that - forget biology - you are what you are and what you are born with. Take care of it. You know how. 30 is often a time of change. It is a watershed where many change radically or, with equal determination, reaffirm their path. For me, I left Canada and spent the rest of my working life overseas - a move I do not regret. Now is the time to consider all that, come to a conclusion and commit. An uncommitted life seems to me, unrewarding. As is often said - you get what everyone gets - a lifetime. Choose carefully. Only you know what you should be.
I feel I strongly agree and disagree at the same time. I’ve committed to a lot of things between 18 and 35, with all my heart and soul, but plans still changed dramatically along the way. Now at 46, I’m ready to change everything once again. The feeing of having to choose the right path has always felt claustrophobic to me.
My nuance would be to commit, definitely. But don’t choose too carefully, because doubt can cause you to freeze and become indecisive.
Haha no pressure or anything! But yeah it's a great way to look at it, thanks for the advice!
Start a retirement fund and/or figure out how investing works (low-cost-no-effort ETF things, not "proper" stock market). Time is your friend here.
I already have 1x my salary in a 401k right now! (Maybe, I think the markets are down lol) And I'm definitely a boglehead style investor so I get a big checkmark for that!
This should be higher.
Compound interest is a thing. The earlier the better. Okay with a compound interest calculator.
Starting earlier can be a difference of millions of dollars in retirement it's no joke.
Since a lot of the important things are covered already pretty well, here's a the more esoteric things I wish I considered sooner:
Assess your emotional relationship with food. Particularly with salt, oil and sugar. This started in my late 20's but went nuts through my 30's. Simply put, I noticed at least for me, these ingredients were having a far bigger impact on my well-being than I would have liked. Have had a long list of gastro/weight related problems but on top of that, I just wasn't craving sweet or fatty things as much. Even milk feels a bit too much sometimes. But i wish I started broadening my pallet earlier and not be caught off guard. We're not machines that burn calories for battery life. Eating is packed with emotions and memories and comfort that makes it a lot more ritualistic than we give it credit for. And it's ruined when you crave some emotional sustenance but can only get it from food that will actively harm you. I think its why my brother got into exceptionally bad eating habits lately. Like his trying to find that same joy we'd get from downing family sized meals the way we did as teenagers.
_
It becomes a lot harder to make smart decisions. I know it seems counter intuitive and you may be able to make rational choices, even at the worst of times. But over time, your mental bandwidth gets stretched further and further. More work. More responsibilities. Less free time. More issues to deal with. Corporate/political BS. At least for me, I needed to ration attention to the things that are most pressing. And that lets things slip through the cracks. So, I've been clicking on more ads. Impulse purchases. Not researching things as much as I should. I've needed to take a few precautions to just add a bit of time to rash decisions and it's helped.
But I can see it going beyond frivolous spending and to towards darker outcomes. There's a lot of opportunities to let one poor decision to compound and spiral into taking over your life. Conspiracy thinking. Cults. MLMs. Extremest politics. Even if your gut is screaming something is right immediately, there's often no harm in being right in a few hours.
_
Try to resolve any family/parent issues. The specifics are up to you and it could be anything from calling more often to going no contact. But it's most likely that the majority of your time with those people are in the past. Especially if you're not living near home. I know things are incredibly polarizing, specifically in western communities but closure is important and you are on infinitely better equipped to advocate for yourself as an adult. Take it from me, it does not take a lot to loose nearly everyone and death at scale puts things in perspective. I was fully ready to drop my dad since there was suddenly nothing tying me back home and he was a real POS growing up. But fast forward 3 years and we're baking sourdough bread while trading note on growing tomatoes. Doesn't make up for what he did and there's a lot of work still needed. But it's better than nothing.
_
And lastly, talking to all of the above. You're probably going to have a few bouts of existential dread. It sucks. Really, really, really sucks. But like the thing about family, it's going to shift your perspective and subtly affect how you act. I think a lot of people bottle up these considerations an that leads to unhealthy nihilism or hedonism. So find a trusted outlet and put it out there to get that feedback. We don't truly know how people see us unless we ask with an open mind. And that means we don't really know how our deaths will be treated. I think this sort of exercise helps you figure out where you are now and it meas you can plot a course for where you would like to end up and the world you want to leave behind.
I think your second point is the most interesting to me, I wonder if we just get lazier when we grow up, intellectually. I was just talking to my mom yesterday about being more malleable mentally and being able to critically think, especially in the world of tech.
This is very timely for me, as I turn 29 in just a couple weeks. I'll be keeping an eye on this to see what advice you get, and hopefully take advantage of it!
I do see some of the stereotypical advice: exercise, diet, dental care, etc. I feel like that advice is easy to ignore because it comes up so often that we brush it to the side (yes dad/mom, I'll do <X>...), so I hope to see some more unique perspectives as well.
I'm also turning 29 at the end of the month. Lots of 96ers around Tildes it seems!
96 is the best year of course!
I think you can only make it your own through your own lived experience. Yes, we all know we should eat healthier and do more sports, or learn art or a language or whatever good habit. But unless you do it, or you notice the effects of not doing it, it's too easy to ignore.
This advice is timeless and stereotypical because it works. I can say it as someone who did sports when he was younger, neglected it in his 20s and then started again at 30: I might be in the best shape I've been in in my life. So while others complain about back issues, I hope I'll run 5ks, marathons, ultra marathons until I die.
I hated running (and arts) and now at 30, I've picked up the habits and realize what I've been missing
I haven't really read the other contributions, but here are the things I wish I had done at 29. For context, I am 45.
Gotten in good shape - every year it is harder to maintain health. It is easier when one starts from a place of relatively good health.
Changed my diet - eat less, mostly green things. I'm happy with who I am, but I want to stick around as long as possible in a healthy way. Eating less is a good way to do so.
Maintain your hobbies - there are various artistic things that I am not as good at as I used to be. I should be able to shred on a guitar just as well as I did 20 years ago, but I didn't practice enough. My eye for photography has grown stagnant. That sort of thing.
Put more in savings / investments - I have a lot of stuff. I wish I had less stuff and more of a safety net.
Lean into libraries - this is a specific example of the previous item. I have so many books. I read them once or twice, then they go on a shelf. They're beautiful, I love them. Despite that, I honestly wish I had fewer books.
Understand that chores are favours you do to your future self - nobody likes taking the garbage out, but it is enjoyable to not live in a place of garbage. Put time into chores, because you will enjoy having the chores be done.
Here are some things that I did do and feel like it worked out well.
Sunscreen and Sunglasses - I go through a lot of sunscreen, and I have very expensive sunglasses. Both of them are great. I haven't had a bad sunburn in 25+ years.
Tell your mentors why they are mentors - I told various people whom I have looked up to what they mean to me, and why I look up to them. They have been very receptive and thankful.
Tell the people you love that you love them - I try to let them all know that I love them and I try to make my actions show that.
Try / Learn new things - do a thing you're uncomfortable with. Learn a new cooking style. Find a new skill. There are so many things that you can learn to do.
Help whomever you can when you can - if I see someone struggling, I try to stop and help whenever I can safely do so. Sometimes that means stopping to help someone with a flat tire, sometimes that means helping out an acquaintance by driving them somewhere, sometimes it's just snowblowing a neighbour's driveway. I just try to put goodness out into the universe.
Enjoy your time - life is hard, loads of things suck. Find enjoyment in life. This could mean playing video games, or making art, or find a partner and, in the immortal words of Rosa Diaz, bone down, or make a great meal, or enjoy a fine beer, or brush your beard, or make a high quality coffee for someone. Whatever you do, life is short, and it is meant to be enjoyed.
Thank you @aphoenix, always appreciated! I think your last couple of points are the most important for me, I definitely struggle to show appreciation and love!
Take good care of your hearing. I know this is not going to make you look cool but if you go to loud concerts or other loud situations, use (possibly discreet...) hearing protection. If you find yourself in a loud situation without hearing protection even a wet piece of cotton or toilet paper can help. You don't want hearing loss or lifelong persistent Tinnitus. Trust me.
I feel like earplugs nowadays are kinda cool, to be fair! It's been a while since I've been to a loud concert but I will definitely keep that in mind!
Now is a good time to think about finding someone to settle down with. The pickings will start to get a lot slimmer from here on out.
To be honest, I found my 30s significantly better for dating than my 20s. Older people are more mature and have a better idea of what they want. So there is much less bullshit and mind games overall. There were plenty of options too.
One of these days these dating app things will work out :')
Based on what I have seen and read, the dating apps now seem less fit for purpose than what existed previously, more tailored to keep people swiping and caught in FOMO.
I met my husband in person for what it's worth.
Counterpoint: I met my wife on Tinder and we have an 18-months-old son now :P
I'm happy for you. : )
They aren't good for sure, but the problem is that everyone is on them.
It's been twenty years since I used a dating app, and even then it was brutal. I had more luck at work and at clubs.
Haha I've had luck on dating apps but nothing long term at least.
Time to listen to Baz Luhrmann again!
Spotify
YouTube
Ensure you get your weight and exercise under control - T2 diabetes is no joke and can hit anyone (speaking from recent experience). Good news is it diet and exercise definitely work if it's caught early
Hope everything is well! My mom used to work in a pharma company for diabetes actually so it's been drilled into my head for a while. My parents also both have issues with diabetes so I'm definitely more cautious.
I’m 28M. Here are the things that I’ve started paying attention to with respect to aging.
You are going to find it strange that some how you are hornier in your 30s than when you were a teen. It'll level out in your 40s lol.