Happy & Healthy

Why I love approaching 30

Now that I'm almost 28, I'm also almost 30. Many people around me are already there or even further, and with a few exceptions, no one likes it. Thirty. The big 3-0. It's always a thing: no one wants to get older, no one wants to head towards the grave. Eternal youth, that's what we want.

But the older I get, the more I enjoy it. If I ever reach an age where my body falls apart, that's another story, but as long as everything works, you won't hear me complain about it. Getting older is a privilege that you should cherish instead of despising it so much. My father once said to his doctor: “Yes, I'm really getting old now, huh,” to which she replied: “Well, be glad.” And that's how it is.

Aside from that, I also find it extremely pleasant that I'm no longer the confused sixteen-year-old teenager I once was, or the aimless eighteen-year-old, or the intensely insecure twenty-year-old. Countless hours I spent chatting on MSN with the boy I liked but NEVER dared to tell him. I twisted myself into all sorts of shapes just to be liked by that boy I met while studying, but who just didn't care much for me. And oh oh oh how many crazy things I did in the work field, how poorly I negotiated, and how much I let people walk all over me.

”Countless hours I spent chatting on MSN with the boy I liked”

Those times are over. Well, not entirely of course, because you never stop learning. But I am much more confident than my eighteen-year-old self and I know much better what I do and do not like, what I do and do not want. Such things really come with the years and I understand very little of people who long for the teenage years in which they supposedly went through life carefree and thoughtlessly. It only seems that way.

So instead of whining and complaining about getting older, I suggest you thank the world on your bare knees that you are allowed to get older. And while you're at it, enjoy all the wisdom you've gathered that, no matter what they say, really does come with the years.