Read This If You Are in Your 30s and Feeling Lost.
There is hope for you yet.
My 30's started in the middle of a world wide crisis.
The whole world was in lock down and I was living with my parents in the middle of country Victoria.
Single.
Broke.
And quietly freaking out about which direction I wanted my life to go.
I had no full time income. My part time job had dried up due to the virus, and I was unhealthy, overweight and just really didn't like myself.
I remember sitting in my childhood bedroom.
I felt sick from an excessive consumption of jam donuts, I felt even more sick because it felt like I hadn't accomplished anything in 30 years...
In that moment I felt like I an absolute loser.
Growing up I was always a rebel.
I never followed the crowd, I always did things my own way.
For a brief moment I found myself wishing that I had been more like my friends that followed the conventional path.
All my childhood friends had steady jobs as lawyers, nurses and teachers.
I on the other hand was a failed ex-chef turned mature-age uni student.
My little brother had met the love of his life, gotten married and was about to become a dad.
I had a hard time being alone with myself, let alone being in charge of raising a tiny human. (But, I do have two dogs, maybe that counts as parenting, right?).
My mum had already married and had both my brother and I by her 30th birthday. I know different time, different circumstances but still, in that moment,
I felt lost.
I felt left behind.
I felt embarrassed and angry.
I kept thinking:
Why hadn't I realised this sooner?
I’m so fucking dumb!
The opportunity for me to do anything meaningful with my life was shrinking, maybe it had already disappeared.
Maybe the life I wanted, the dream I had envisioned for myself was over, what if I'd missed my chance?
If your reading this maybe your feeling the same way I felt.
Left behind.
Lost.
There is this narrative that is thrown around a lot these days, that if we haven't made $10M by the time we turn 20 we are pretty much f*cked for life.
There are so many videos titled:
"Do X to get rich in 2024"
It's embarrassing to admit that I've watched so many of these videos with the hope of doing just that.
FYI they don't work.
Not without a lot of f*cking luck and the rub of a magic lamp.
I've started and failed at enough side hustles to know that now.
And, no I still don't have $10M.
What I lacked in all these ventures wasn't the drive to see them through, nor because I'm afraid of hard work, that's not the case, it was because they didn't sit right with me, none of them actually appealed to my sense of self or my identity.
It's not just social media's fault, it's a societal flaw.
These videos are only adding fuel to an already Tokyo sky-tree high bonfire, and it all compounds, burning hotter and hotter over time just to make us all feel like sh*t.
These videos get a lot of views because people just like you and me feel lost and need answers.
We haven't figured it all out.
But, I'm sharing this in the hopes that you come to realize, just like I did, that it's never too late to start.
The truth is that what you see is only surface level.
No one has their sh*t together.
No one has all the answers, we are all figuring it out as we go.
My mum still has troubles, my brother hasn’t got all the answers, and my childhood friends are big fish in small ponds.
If you are feeling lost it's because you:
Don't know where you are right now,
Where you want to go,
or How to get there.
But you have enough awareness to know that something is off.
When we hit these big milestones, like turning 30, we often tend to take the time to reflect.
The problem comes when we sub-consciously realize that our vision for our life has shifted; that our vision doesn't align with who we are, but our conscious self hasn't come around yet, and this is why it's painful.
But that pain isn't something to be scared of.
That pain is telling you something... you just need to figure out what.
I know it's easier said than done.
I can only share my experience, your journey will look very different to mine, but that's the best part.
Everyone is unique.
When you go to the bookstore, there is not just one romance novel, one travel guide, or one cook book.
There's many - and all of them have something meaningful to say.
Every story has individuality.
There are always sub-plots.
The characters are quirky and have their flaws.
Why do we assume that our life has to follow the same plot as everyone else's.
It doesn't.
From a young age we have all been told to go to school and get good grades, so we can land a good job with a high paying salary. To settle down, to buy a house, to have kids, to work until we are 65, and then retire, so we can spend our days aimlessly watching cooking channel reruns and playing golf on Wednesdays.
This is the dream of the conventional path.
There is nothing wrong with this, if this is your dream, then that's fine - but it's not mine.
It was never my dream.
My dream had just gotten lost in all the noise.
Coz I'm a rebel, remember?
Cutting through that noise was the hardest part, it took a lot of soul searching to do it too.
But I'm here to tell you that there is no rule that says you need to live the same way as everyone else, and you don't need to remain the same person as you were yesterday.
You can change who you are in an instant.
You just have to choose to follow through.
If you are unhappy right now, then make the decision to change that.
If you are scared, good.
It won't be easy, and it's not a quick fix. You're just stepping off the edge here.
You are in pain because you have sat too long in this comfort zone but the outer fence is beginning to decay.
Let it.
You must expand your map.
Read.
Meditate.
Take up new hobbies.
Meet new people.
This is your life's pursuit: To understand who you are and live as you. In the best way possible.
What you are doing now isn't working, so you’ll need to change that.
You'll need to gain different perspectives and acquire more knowledge. If you are working with the same data as before, how do you expect to find a different answer?
You won't.
We learn through experiences, not memorisation. So take what you learn and apply it to your life. Experiment with what you like and what you don't. With every failure comes a lesson in understanding.
Of understanding yourself.
I'm a rebel, an educator, and an artist.
Understanding all this is what led me to pick up a camera, a new language, and a pen.
Take the time to sit alone, phone off, and ask yourself the hard questions.
* What do I want my life to look like?
* What do I want to do?
* Who do I want to be?
* How can I make it happen?These will take time to answer, and you'll revisit them many times. The answers you come up with will evolve with you over time, too.
That's okay.
You don't need pinpoint accuracy.
You just need to find the right direction.
If you don't create your own vision for the future, someone else will. In fact, they already did, and you have been living it.
It's the cause of your pain.
You haven't been left behind.
Because you were never following the conventional path.
I know I'm not an absolute loser.
I don't have a family or a full time career because I haven't chosen to create them.
That's okay.
And no, I haven’t fixed all my problems, but I have a plan now. A crystal clear vision for the future that I just cannot leave alone.
So if you are at any age and feeling lost, remember:
There is always still time.
For me and for you.
I hope this helped.
👉🏻 Mellowmorphia is free but if you enjoyed this post and want to show your support you can always buy me a coffee.