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10.26.12
"By the age of 30 you should have anxiety, and an emotional support pet that also has anxiety."
This is 30.
When Steve Adcock, an entrepreneur and “fitness buff” posted this to his Twitter:
“By age 30, you should have a group of friends that talk business, money, and fitness, not politics and pop culture.”
… people had thoughts.
By age 30, you should have a group of friends that talk business, money, and fitness, not politics and pop culture.
— Steve · Millionaire Habits (@SteveOnSpeed) August 1, 2022
His post might have been intended as more of an encouragement to surround yourself with people who challenge your current mindset, considering the tweet continued with “one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made was making friends with like-minded folks who talked about the same [stuff] over and over. I agreed with 99% of it. Your comfort zone will kill your progress.”
But still, overall the tweet left an unsavory taste in people’s mouths—primarily because it implied that money was somehow a better conversation topic than what people are usually genuinely passionate about. Why not talk about your favorite television show with friends if it lights you up inside?
It also seemed to uphold the dying myth that by the age of 30, the puzzle pieces of adulthood should somehow, as if by magic, simply fall into place. And this is where folks chimed in with their own hilarious (and sarcastic) jokes about what one should expect by their third decade on planet Earth. They did not disappoint.
Here are 12 things you didn’t know you needed by the time you turn 30. Enjoy:
By the age of 30 you should have anxiety, and an emotional support pet that also has anxiety
— Shilpa Rathnam (@shilparathnam) August 3, 2022
“By the age of 30 you should have anxiety, and an emotional support pet that also has anxiety.” – @shilparathnam
I have at least three friends who tick this box.
So. Many. 401ks.
Giphy“By the age of 30 you should have a therapist you always reschedule on, a big bag of spinach in the fridge that always goes bad before you get to it, and at least one stagnant 401k that you haven’t merged after changing jobs.” – @kianatipton
Check, check and check.
By the age of 30 you should own, not rent, OWN a bouncy castle. This is a time when you should be building equity. The only way to beat inflation is with inflatables.
— Yer Gal Friday (@FridayInHalifax) August 4, 2022
“By the age of 30 you should own, not rent, OWN a bouncy castle. This is a time when you should be building equity. The only way to beat inflation is with inflatables.” – @FridayinHalifax
Where’s the lie?
What's one more notebook?
Giphy“By the age of 30 you should have a favorite pen you won’t let anyone use, a cache of pretty notebooks you’re saving for a special occasion, and at least one piece of media you rewatch endlessly for comfort.” – @allieiswriting
Oh how I do love using my unicorn gel pen while writing in my notebook as “The Great British Bake Off” plays in the background. Not my good notebook, of course. That’s tucked away for the day I finally write the next great American novel.
By the age of 30 you should have at least one large emotional support box of obsolete* cables.
— Dana Sibera (@NanoRaptor) August 4, 2022
* but you know they aren't.
“By the age of 30 you should have at least one large emotional support box of obsolete* cables.* but you know they aren't.” – @nanoraptor
Better yet, make it two.
Iconic
Giphy“By age 30 you should have a sick ass jacket people identify you by.” – @dieworkwear
by the age of 30 you should have at least 3-5 feral raccoons as your best friends
— M.🍒 (@casinthemeadow) August 3, 2022
“By the age of 30 you should have at least 3-5 feral raccoons as your best friends.” – @casinthemeadow
A Marvel-based Twitter account thought something similar…
Wink :)
Giphy“By the age of 30, your friend group should consist of a talking raccoon, a tree with a limited vocabulary, the most dangerous woman in the galaxy, and Drax.” – @MarvelUnlimited
By the age of 30 you should have one friend who is a little frog
— Hana (they/them) (@Hana_D_Barrett) August 4, 2022
“By the age of 30 you should have one friend who is a little frog.” – @Hana_D_Barrett
I don’t know who these 30-year-olds with frog friends are, but they are winning at adulting.
Don't forget a funny sidekick!
Giphy“By age 30 you should have several henchmen, a sworn enemy, and a narrative foil.” – SparkNotes
The company that’s helped us fake our way through book reports in high school offers life lessons too.
My brain at all times.
Giphy“By the age of 30, you should have at least 5 web browsers with over 100 tabs opened that you don't have any plan to actually read.” – @KhoaVuUmn
Being 30 means having virtual commitment issues. Finally, one person rallied in the war of art versus commerce, and their stance was quite clear.
By your 40's-50's (or sooner), you realize that people that talk frequently about their money/wealth are nothing but insufferable, shallow boors.
— Sonya in the Backcountry (@SJCanyonLove) August 1, 2022
Call me dull, but I prefer to talk about amazing books, podcasts, gardening, hobbies, documentaries/shows on Netflix, etc.
“By your 40's-50's (or sooner), you realize that people that talk frequently about their money/wealth are nothing but insufferable, shallow boors. Call me dull, but I prefer to talk about amazing books, podcasts, gardening, hobbies, documentaries/shows on Netflix, etc.” – @SJCanyonLove
Bottom line: Love what you love and don't weigh yourself down with arbitrary rules about age.
With a hair band power ballad to boot.
1989 video brings back strong memories for Gen Xers who came of age in the '80s.
It was the year we saw violence in Tiananmen Square and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The year we got Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally" and Michael Keaton in Tim Burton's "Batman." The year "Seinfeld" and "The Simpsons" debuted on TV, with no clue as to how successful they would become. The year that gave us New Kids on the Block and Paula Abdul while Madonna and Janet Jackson were enjoying their heyday.
The jeans were pegged, the shoulders were padded and the hair was feathered and huge. It was 1989—the peak of Gen X youth coming of age.
A viral video of a group of high school students sitting at their desks in 1989—undoubtedly filmed by some geeky kid in the AV club who probably went on to found an internet startup—has gone viral across social media, tapping straight into Gen X's memory banks. For those of us who were in high school at the time, it's like hopping into a time machine.
The show "Stranger Things" has given young folks of today a pretty good glimpse of that era, but if you want to see exactly what the late '80s looked like for real, here it is:
\u201cHigh school students, 1989.\u201d— A SLICE OF HISTORY (@A SLICE OF HISTORY) 1659831504
Oh so many mullets. And the Skid Row soundtrack is just the icing on this nostalgia cake. (Hair band power ballads were ubiquitous, kids.)
I swear I went to high school with every person in this video. Like, I couldn't have scripted a more perfect representation of my classmates (which is funny considering that this video came from Paramus High School in New Jersey and I went to high school on the opposite side of the country).
Comments have poured in on Reddit from both Gen Xers who lived through this era and those who have questions.
First, the confirmations:
"Can confirm. I was a freshman that year, and not only did everyone look exactly like this (Metallica shirt included), I also looked like this. 😱😅"
"I graduated in ‘89, and while I didn’t go to this school, I know every person in this room."
"It's like I can virtually smell the AquaNet and WhiteRain hairspray from here...."
"I remember every time you went to the bathroom you were hit with a wall of hairspray and when the wind blew you looked like you had wings."
Then the observations about how differently we responded to cameras back then.
"Also look how uncomfortable our generation was in front of the camera! I mean I still am! To see kids now immediately pose as soon as a phone is pointed at them is insanity to me 🤣"
"Born in 84 and growing up in the late 80’s and 90’s, it’s hard to explain to younger people that video cameras weren’t everywhere and you didn’t count on seeing yourself in what was being filmed. You just smiled and went on with your life."
Which, of course, led to some inevitable "ah the good old days" laments:
"Life was better before the Internet. There, I said it."
"Not a single cell phone to be seen. Oh the freedom."
"It's so nice to be reminded what life was like before cell phones absorbed and isolated social gatherings."
But perhaps the most common response was how old those teens looked.
"Why do they all look like they're in their 30's?"
"Everyone in this video is simultaneously 17 and 49 years old."
"Now we know why they always use 30 y/o actors in high school movies."
As some people pointed out, there is an explanation for why they look old to us. It has more to do with how we interpret the fashion than how old they actually look.
Ah, what a fun little trip down memory lane for those of us who lived it. (Let's just all agree to never bring back those hairstyles, though, k?)
Paul Graham's explanation is spot on.
The way makers use time makes meetings far more disruptive than they are for managers.
Most people don't look at their work calendar on any given day and say, "Yay! I have a meeting!" Most of us just understand and accept that meetings are a part of work life in most industries.
Some people, however, are far more negatively impacted by scheduled meetings than others. For people involved in creating or producing, meetings are actively disruptive to work in a way that isn't often the case for managers.
A viral post with an explanation from Paul Graham breaks down why.
Graham is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author. In 2009, he described on his website the differences between the way managers and makers utilize work time and how meetings affect their workflow. It's a brilliant observation that rings true for people in various fields, and understanding this difference can help bridge the gap that often exists between those who work in creation or production and those who manage them.
Graham's explanation was shared by Reese Jones on Facebook with a graphic that shows the difference in how time is seen between managers (people who manage others—the bosses) and makers (writers, artists, programmers—the creators). The manager's time during the day is split into small blocks, whereas the maker's is split into two large chunks.
"One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they're on a different type of schedule from other people," Graham wrote. "Meetings cost them more."
Graham explained that managers and makers work on two different types of schedule. The manager's schedule looks more like an appointment book, with the day broken into one-hour intervals.
"You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default, you change what you're doing every hour," he explained. "When you use time that way, it's merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you're done."
Generally, the folks in power are on this kind of schedule. But those who make things don't think in hours. Writers, artists, programmers and others who create for a living work in half-day units at least.
"You can't write or program well in units of an hour," wrote Graham. "That's barely enough time to get started."
Then he got to the heart of the problem with managers making meetings for makers:
"When you're operating on the maker's schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That's no problem for someone on the manager's schedule. There's always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker's schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.
"For someone on the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work."
Bingo. As a "maker" myself, I can attest to this description being spot on for me personally. If I have to attend a meeting, it's best for it to be right at the beginning or end of those two blocks of time. Tossing one into the middle of the morning or middle of the afternoon is far more disruptive than someone who isn't a maker might understand.
Many people in the comments complained about meetings being a waste of time, but I don't think that's the case all or even most of the time. I see the value in many kinds of meetings and as someone who largely works alone, I actually do sometimes look at the calendar and say "Yay! A meeting!" The issue isn't so much meetings themselves as their timing.
Graham explained that a meeting can sometimes blow half a day for a maker, not that the meeting itself takes half a day but purely due to the interruption of the workflow.
"Each type of schedule works fine by itself," he wrote. "Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager's schedule, they're in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in."
Graham's post can be read in its entirety here. It's worth perusing whether you're a manager or a maker. The more we understand the different ways different people operate, the more we can learn to respect and honor one another's needs, which ultimately makes us all more successful.