Is there life after 30 - an impressive sample of the collective wisdom

A few weeks after his thirtieth birthday, writer and entrepreneur Mark Manson turned to your blog subscribers over 37 years, with a request to share their experiences gained in the period from 30 to 40 years.

Combining all the answers, Mark received an impressive sample of collective wisdom.




Asked responded to 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.

Below 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 wish to remain anonymous.

1. Begin to save for old age 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 funds 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 - immediately begin to build their financial well-being, to start saving for their retirement savings

. To do this, readers have suggested the following actions:

1. Make the main task to pay all the debts and loans as soon as possible.

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

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

4. Avoid frivolous purchases. Do not buy a house until you can secure the most affordable for you to terms of the loan or mortgage.

5. 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 regretted that no start delay 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 savings, because her husband earned more than her. They subsequently divorced, and all money received after the divorce, she was forced 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 that he was forced to live on the money his son, as he unexpectedly lost his job during the crisis of 2008, without having to account 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 in her thirty years, having two sons worked in low-skilled work, and still managed to set aside money for retirement account. Since she started early enough and successfully invested savings, fifty is the first time ever achieved financial stability. Her words: "You can achieve anything. You just do it. »

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

Your mind feels for 10-15 years younger than actual age of your body. Your health goes faster than you think, and you do not even have time to notice it.
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. That said, virtually everyone who participated 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 suddenly in one day, it gradually destroyed unnoticed for many years.

Over the next 10 years, you need to 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 food and exercise without stop. 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, which do not carry any value to your life.
Hayley, 37 years

After calls to take care of your physical and financial health, the most frequent advice from those who have already lived four decades, was 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 someone else's feelings, or they fall into the trap of wanting to change the other person, to please him or make him feel better about himself. It never works. In fact, it makes it even 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 open, full of opportunities and lack of experience makes them cling to people, even if they do not deserve it. But thirties already know that there are good relations with great difficulty, there is always enough people that is in the world to make friends, so there is no reason to waste your time on people who do not support us on our path of life.
< br> 4. Treat well to those you care about.

Tragedies happen in everyone's life, family and friends of each person.

Be a man, who at such times 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 of shit, which you could not even think. Parents die, your spouse die or change, children continue to be born, bred friends ... the list never ends.

You can not imagine, perhaps, how much it can help a person at a time, just having stayed with him after listening 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 members who are really close to you.

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

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

Twenties 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 it, 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?

In a word:. Focus

You can achieve more in life, if being focused on,

to do one thing really, really well.
Eriksson, 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 be distructed". 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 pointed out that most people choose their 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 half succeed in something else.

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

For some people it will cost even more risks in their early thirties. This may mean career destruction, on which construction has already spent 10 years of life, loss of income, for which they 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 the majority believes that the need to adhere to the chosen path, never too late to start over. 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 the fastest ten years of life, that make the days - in the weeks and weeks - in years. And in 40 years, they found themselves in the midst of midlife crisis, without taking absolutely nothing to solve the problem, which had been aware of even 10 years ago.
Richard, 41 years
My biggest regret is that did not.
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 of the "adult" hinder you to take risks and start all over again.

I soon will knock 41 and I have said to myself thirty years: you must not lead their lives in accordance 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. Twenty years later, he calls it the best decision in my life. Ask a question to his mother, I got the answer: "I would like to think I'm more precarious. Your father and I have made something like a plan: to do one thing, then another, then a third time, but looking back, I realize that we do not have to do that. We are too limited judged on our lives, and I am a bit sorry about that. »

Less fear. Less fear. Less fear.

Next year I will be 50, and I just now learned that lesson. In 30 years, the fear of poisoning was the driving force of my life. He's 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 about how I could fail. I worry about the consequences.

If I could live again this time, I would have risked more often.
Aida, 49 years

7. You must continue to grow and develop.



Do you have two assets, the loss of which will not fill: your body and your mind. Most ceases to develop and work on a thirty-year after 20. Most are too busy to worry about self-development. But if you're one of the few who continues to learn and develop their thinking and take care of your mental and physical health, by age 40 you light years ahead of their peers.
Stan, 48 years

If someone can change in thirty - and should continue to do so - it means that he has to work on himself, to become 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 at courses and seminars. Someone first started his business, or moved to another country. Someone began to visit a psychologist or beginning to practice meditation.
Your goal number 1 should be striving to become a better person, partner, parent, friend, colleague, etc. - In other words, to grow as a person
. Emilia, 39 years

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

If you are not dead yet - mentally, emotionally, or socially - you can not predict the life of 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 did not lose anything - you can not lose what you never had. In addition, your sense of loss - the fruit of your thinking, which will weaken over time
. Thomas, 56 years old

One of the lessons that I have learned, summarizing the results of its 20th anniversary, was the fact that nobody knows what to do. 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, it will look absolutely unimportant in 10 or 20 years, and there's nothing wrong.

This is called "development". Just try not to constantly take themselves too seriously.
Simon, 57 years old

Despite the feeling of invulnerability that accompanies you this decade, you do not know what will happen - no one knows. Although it bothers those who cling to permanence and security, it gives freedom as soon as you realize a simple truth: everything is constantly changing. In the end, there can come a truly sad 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 others, for life - a great journey that is getting better
. Prue, 38 years

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

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

. Spend more time with loved ones. When you're growing up, your relationship changes, 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 swamped with letters of the family and their stunned siloy.Semya - new big topic of our next decade of life, because it begins to touch us on 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.