The collective wisdom. 10 tips from the thirty people over forty

A few weeks after his thirtieth writer and entrepreneur Mark Manson addressed to my blog subscribers over 37 years, with a request to share their experiences, produced in the period from 30 to 40 years. Combine all the answers, Mark was an impressive piece of collective wisdom.

It responded to the request of more than 600 people, many of whom were sent detailed responses to several sheets. Analyzing them, not without surprise, Mark found that 5-6 councils repeatedly heard from many different people and in one form or another there are hundreds of times. Apparently, these are a few thoughts as accurately describe what happens to a person, exchanging the fourth decade.

Here are 10 of the most common tips from 600 letters sent to Mark - mainly in the form of direct quotations. Some pointed out the age and name, some wished to remain anonymous.

1. Begin to save for retirement now, without delay

I have lived up to 30 years, about anything without thinking, but after thirty you have to make a big financial breakthrough. Pension savings should not be delayed indefinitely. You must learn to understand how to construct such things as insurance, pension plan and mortgages, for now this burden rests on your shoulders.
- Cash, 41 years

The most important advice that was present in virtually every sent a letter - to immediately begin to build their financial well-being, to start saving for their retirement savings.

To this end, readers are invited to take the following steps:

Make it your main task to pay all the debts and credits as soon as possible.

Create a personal financial "stabilization fund" - thousands of people were left without livelihood due to health problems, lawsuits, divorces, business problems etc.

Spend part of each paycheck to the accelerated repayment of the loan or postpone it to a savings account.

Avoid frivolous purchases. Do not buy a house until you can secure the best terms available to you on a loan or mortgage.

Do not invest in something you do not understand. Do not trust stockbrokers.

One reader wrote: "If your debts exceed 10% of your salary for the year, this should serve as a serious warning to you. Stop unnecessary spending, pay off debt, start to make savings. "Another:" I would like to defer more money for a rainy day, because unanticipated spending literally killed my budget. And I would like to pay more attention to their pension savings, because now they have a very small. »


In some cases, big problems in life because of their inability to accumulate savings after thirty. A reader named Jody wished she had to postpone the start of 10% of each paycheck, when she was 30. Her career eventually derailed in their 57 she is still living paycheck to paycheck. Another 62-year-old woman also did not do personal sberezhny because her husband earned more. They subsequently divorced, and all money received after the divorce, she had to spend to solve the sudden onset of health problems. She, too, is still living from paycheck to paycheck with a view to end his days in a nursing home. Another reader said he is forced to live on the money his son, because he unexpectedly lost his job during the crisis of 2008, without having to run any savings.

They all agree on one thing: start saving money as soon as possible and as much as possible. Indicative of the story of a woman who at thirty years old, with two children, worked for low-skilled work and still manages to set aside funds in a retirement account. Since she started early enough and successfully invested savings, fifty for the first time she has achieved financial stability. Her words: "You can achieve anything you want. You just have to do it. »

2. Start taking care of your health now, without delay

Your mind feels for 10-15 years younger than the real age of your body. Your health goes faster than you think, and you do not even have time to notice this.
- Tom, 55 years

We all know how to take care of their own health. We know how to eat, how to sleep, exercise, and so the list goes on. But, as in the case of pension funds, the opinion of the senior always unanimous: become healthy and stay in their old age. This was stated by almost everyone who took part in the poll, saying roughly the same thing - what do you do with your body has a cumulative effect. Your body does not break down all of a sudden one day, it gradually destroyed unnoticed for many years. Over the next 10 years, you should slow down the destruction.

We're not talking about banal council "eat more vegetables." Cancer patients, survivors of heart attack and stroke, diabetes and high blood pressure, people with aching joints and chronic pain, they all say the same thing:

If I could go back and start all over again, I would start to eat healthy and engage in sports without stopping. Then I found an excuse, but the consequences are not represented.

3. Do not communicate with people who treat you badly

Learn to say "no" to people, actions and commitments that do not carry any value to your life.
- Hayley, 37 years

After appeals to take care of your physical and financial health, the most frequent advice from those who have lived for four decades has been quite interesting: They would love to return to the past and built a strong restrictions in their personal lives, to spend more time with good people.

What exactly do they mean?

Do not tolerate people who do not treat you well. Dot. Do not tolerate them for financial gain. Do not tolerate them for emotional reasons. Do not tolerate them for the sake of your children or your own good.
- Jane, 52 years

Do not let the mediocre people in friends, work, love, relationships and life.
- Sean, 43 years

Usually people overcome their own limitations, because they find it difficult to hurt other people's feelings or they fall into the trap of wanting to change the other person, like him or make him feel better about himself. It never works. in fact, it even makes it worse. As wisely said one reader: "Selfishness and self-interest - are two different things. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. »



Twenty world seems to open, full of opportunities, and lack of experience makes them cling to people, even if they do not deserve it. But thirty-year have already learned that there are good relations with great difficulty that the world is always enough people that should be friends, so there's no reason to waste your time on people who do not support us on our path of life.

4. Treat well to those you care about

Tragedies happen in everyone's life, family and friends of each person. Be a man, who is in such moments can be calculated. I think the gap between thirty and forty years - a decade when you and your loved ones starts to happen a lot vskogo shit about which you could not even think. Parents die, your spouse die or change, children continue to be born, bred friends ... the list is endless. You can not imagine, perhaps, how much it can help a person at a time, just having stayed with him, heard it, without judging.
- Rebecca, 40 years

Accordingly, calling to strengthen the personal boundaries to those whom we do not want to let into our lives, many readers are advised to spend more time with those friends and family who are really close to you.

5. anything else you will not achieve - focus on what you get really good

In life, everything is built on compromises. You sacrifice something one to get the other, and you can not get both together. Accept it.
- Eldri, 60 years

Twenty years full of dreams. They believe that they have all the time in the world. I myself at twenty-fed many illusions about their site - it will be just one of the many occupation. How could I know that most of the next ten years, I have to spend on to become competent enough in this area? And now that I have found the necessary competence, I have a huge advantage, I love what I do, so why should I throw it all for the sake of something else?

One word: focus. You can achieve more in life, if being focused on how to make one thing very, very well.
- Erickson, 49 years

Another reader: "I would advise himself from the past to focus on the 1-2 / desires / dreams and work hard for them. Do not get distracted. "And another:" You must accept that you can not catch everything. In order to achieve something in life, will have to sacrifice a lot. »

Some readers have noted that most people choose a career at the turn of the twentieth, and like many other make a choice, this is often a mistake. It takes years to find what we really good at it and brings pleasure. But it is better to focus on its main strengths and bring them to the maximum, year after year, than to succeed in a half-something else.

I'd told myself Thirty discard what other people think, and to determine its natural advantages, his passion, and then build your life around that.
- Sarah, 58 years

For some people it will cost even more risks in their early thirties. This could mean the destruction of a career in the construction of which has already spent 10 years of life, loss of income, for which they have worked and which have become accustomed. Which brings us to the point ...

6. Do not be afraid to take risks, you can still change

Although the age of 30, most said that they should adhere to the chosen path, never too late to start all over again. Over the past 10 years I have seen people, most of all sorry for his decision to leave everything as it is, though it is considered wrong. These are quick ten years of life that make day - in a week, a week - in the years to come. And in 40 years, they found themselves in the midst of a midlife crisis, without taking absolutely nothing to address the problem, which were aware of 10 years ago.
- Richard, 41 years

Most of all, I regret not having done.
- Sam, 47 years

Many have noticed that society requires us to "decide" to 30 years - with a career, marital status, financial situation, etc. But this is not true. In fact, dozens of messages sent literally begged not to allow public expectations from the "adult" hinder you to take risks and start all over again.



I will knock 41 soon, and I'd told myself thirty years: you should not give their lives in compliance with the ideals to which you do not believe. Live your own life, do not let anyone control it. Do not be afraid to put everything on the card, you have the power to create anew.
- Lisa, 41

Many readers were united by a decision to change careers after thirty and the subsequent improvement in their lives. One of them threw a high-paying job the military engineer and became a teacher. Dvadtsvt years later, he calls it the best decision in my life. Ask a question about his mother, I got the answer: "I would have wanted me to think more outside the box. Your father and I have made something like a plan: to do one thing, then another, then a third, but looking back, I realize that we do not have to do that. We are too limited to judge our lives, and I am a bit sorry about that. »

Less fear. Less fear. Less fear. Next year I will be 50 and I've just learned a lesson. In 30 years, the fear of poisoning was the driving force of my life. He is an incredibly negative effect on my marriage, my career, my self-esteem. I plead guilty to that worry about what people say about me. I thought that can not fail. I worry about the consequences. If I could live this time over again, I would have risked more often.
- Aida, 49 years

7. You should continue to grow and develop

You have two assets, the loss of which will not fill: your body and your mind. Most ceases to develop and work on himself after thirty years of 20. Most are too busy to worry about self-development. But if you are one of those few who continue to learn, to develop their thinking and take care of your mental and physical health, for 40 years you will be light years ahead of their peers.
- Stan, 48 years

If someone can change in thirty - and must continue to do so - then it should work on ourselves to get better. Many readers have noted that the decision to sit down again at the desk in thirty years - one of the most useful things that they did. Someone recorded on courses and seminars. Someone first started your business or move to another country. Someone began to visit a psychologist or begin to practice meditation.

Your goal should be the number one desire to become a better person, partner, parent, friend, colleague, etc. - In other words, to grow as a person.
- Emily, 39 years

8. No one understands what he is doing. Get used to it

If you are not dead - mentally, emotionally, or socially - you can not predict your life for 5 years. It will not go the way you expect. So stop assume that you can plan ahead, stop suffer what is happening now, because all the same things will change, and overcome the desire to control the direction of your life. However, fortunately, you can use a bunch of chances and nothing to lose - you can not lose what you never had. In addition, your sense of loss - the fruit of your reflections, which will weaken over time.
- Thomas, 56 years

One of the lessons that I have learned, summarizing the results of its 20th anniversary, was that no one understands what he does. Judging from the letters from the forties, it usually continues to work, and later in life - in fact, it works forever.

Most of what you think is important now is to look completely unimportant in 10 or 20 years, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is called "development". Just try not constantly take themselves too seriously.
- Simon, 57 years

Contrary to the feeling of invulnerability that accompanies you this decade, you do not know what will happen - and no one knows. Although it bothers those who cling to the permanence and security, it gives freedom as soon as you realize the simple truth that everything is constantly changing. In the end, there can come a truly sorrowful times. Do not shut off the pain and do not avoid it. Grief happens in everyone's life, it is the result of an open and passionate soul. Appreciate it. Above all, be kind to yourself and to others, because life - a great journey that is getting better.
- Prue, 38 years

I am 44 and I would like to inform yourself thirty years, forty years that my life will be filled with silly things varied, but - silly ... So, I'm thirty-year, do not judge a high. You still do not know anything. And that's good.
- Shirley, 44 years

9. to invest in your family - it's worth it

Spend more time with loved ones. When you're growing up, your relationships are changing, and how they change, depends on you. Your parents will always see your child as you do not show them himself as an independent adult. All age. Everyone dies. Use your allotted time to build the right attitude and enjoy family life.
- Cash, 41 years

I was inundated with letters of the family and stunned them by force. Family - the new big topic of our next decade of life, because it begins to concern us from both sides. Your parents are aging and you have to think through how you will communicate with them as an adult. And you need to think through the construction of their own family.

Most agree that it is necessary to leave behind all the grievances and problems with parents and learn how to interact with them. One reader wrote: "You are too old to blame the parents in any own shortcomings. In 20 years, you could just run away from home. In the thirty - you are an adult. Really. Be above it. »

Then each of us comes the next question, have a child or not?

You do not have time. You have no money. You must first make a career. This will end your usual life. Stop ... kids - it's great. They make you better in everything. They force you to go beyond your capabilities. They make you happy. Do not put off having children. If you have not already done so to 30, now is the time. You will never regret.
- Kevin, 38 years