People always say your 30s are great, but no one really explains why. Is it confidence, career growth, friendships, health routines… or is that just something people say to feel better about aging? For the guys here, what truly improved for you once you hit your 30s? Was it a slow change or did it hit you all at once?
34 comments
Awareness.
sex
I am way more confident in who I am as a person and understand my boundaries completely. I know my non-negotiables. This has helped me tremendously as I have developed my career, my work/life balance, and my relationships.
Getting respect just for being an older male
nothing
I don’t think any of those things just magically improve because you’re older, other than maybe confidence to some extent.
Career growth is because if you picked a career in your mid 20s like most people do and worked at it for several years you’ve probably started to advance a bit by the time you get to your 30s.
Friendships…. Idk it really depends on the person.
My health routines improved since I turned 30 but I had to do that intentionally. And nothing was stopping me from doing it when I was younger, I was just lazy and unmotivated. But almost having a stroke right before I turned 30 was plenty of motivation for me.
I think your 30s are just when you start to get the results of a lot of decisions/habits you made in your 20s, but you’re still young enough to change course if you don’t like the results you get.
Ability to understand human nature.
Ballsack flexibility and don’t-give-a-fuck-ness
Closer to the end.
Pretty much everything for me. Life is much better after 30. It’s not even close. I stay in better shape. Know how to handle my anger. I’m more patient, kind and understanding. All of which in turn makes every personal relationship a million times better. More content with myself. Only real downside is I don’t have as many close friendships but that’s about it. A lot of that has to do with me moving all over the country every couple years too not just age.
Understanding nuance better. Not much, but more than before. More confidence, also not much more
For me it was general confidence, financial stability, being able to say IDGAF about most things. I was still trying to get my career started, a bit insecure and followed the flock a bit more. In my 30s that all changed. One day I just said fuck it, do your own thing. Thankfully I kept my health for a lot of years. I have seen a decline since my mid 50s (I am 60 now). I am just kind of worn out from working, getting a little slower, etc… I am ready to shed the career and focus on other things.
Idk my life fell apart at 30 lol
Life. Just everything really. The only negative is people get busier so there’s less time to just hang with your bros.
Everyone is different, everyone goes at their own pace, etc etc etc but for a lot of guys your thirties are when you are still fairly young physically but are mature and established as a grown man. Thirties for me took me into home ownership, marriage, early fatherhood, and a lot of career growth. The things that I was worried about as a 29 year old I don’t worry about at all as a 40 year old.
Putting what matters in focus and filtering out the bullshit. I think a lot of people stress in their teens and 20s to try and impress people that don’t matter.
Anymore, when someone starts talking about how great their career is and how amazing their life is, instead of thinking that I’m behind or some kind of loser, I just roll my eyes and get on with my life.
Still waiting to find out.
Confidence, ability to pull out that big dick energy when the situation demands
Money. Sex. The joys of family.
Also for some reason your balls start to hang super low!
My 30s were just like my 20s but with more money and status.
Refining your palette throughout your twenties. You’ve presumably dabbled with music, friends, food, travel, jobs, partners, sex, living situations, jobs, bosses, and more.
You’ve hopefully experimented with what you do and don’t want in life, and you’re more sure of yourself as a result.
The sex has gotten way better. My wife and I have gotten our fuck like rabbits phase out of the way, and in doing so unlocked a smorgasbord of kinks that we both have (and the list is honestly still growing).
We don’t have sex three times a day anymore, usually once or twice a week. But when we do it’s usually at least an hour long event, sometimes reaching 2 or 3 hours long, and blows anything I could have dreamed about in my 20’s out of the water. It took years of exploring and learning about each other’s bodies and preferences to get to this stage, I can’t wait to see where we’re at in another ten years.
Caring less about things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. There was so much out there that would stress me out in my teenage/college years. It all seems so stupid now, and I laugh when I see people who are around my age or older freak out over these things
You really stop giving a shit about petty nonsense. At least I did.
Confidence. I know I’m not perfect but am absolutely happy with who I am, good and bad.
If you made right choices you start to earn money, which at this stage of live solves almost all of your problems (provided your health is ok)
Make more money than ever, can’t afford anything. Stronger than ever, still can’t compete with people on steroids. Know more people than ever, still don’t meet any single women, for years. Healthier than ever, because I spend lots of money and time on putting the right things into my body, and I wake up too early exhausted everyday. I work harder than I ever thought possible, and I’m extremely unfilled with anything to do with corporate America. I’m across the board better than I was, in almost every category, and I’m same person. Alone, working every single day to just survive, and watching everything get far worse in the world, while everyone acts like I’m the problem for saying it. It’s pretty ironic, this whole life thing. It seems like I’ll just never be good enough for a normal experience that everyone else seems to get. You know, just spending time around other humans, maybe getting close to them. Seems I’m just drifter farther and farther away from any sort of authenticity.
Less angst, more ability to calmly deal with situations
I mean, for me, *everything* right before I turn 35. I became a homeowner shortly before my 30th birthday. I am far more comfortable in my job, my income has continued to grow to where I can live a perfectly comfortable lifestyle while saving for retirement, I am more confident in myself, I’ve stopped stressing about things well out of my control, I’ve been a big enough man to know when I needed to reach out for help with depression, I’m in my first serious relationship with a woman that [never should have still been on the market] ~~the rest of men collectively never should have let last this long~~.
Life is just pretty damn great.
I feel like all the things I worried about in my 20s kinda just faded away. I stopped caring so much about what people thought about me. I started focusing on what was important to me (wife, family, career—especially career). That said, I was burnt out by 40.
you finally get over that girl who broke your heart (kinda) 😂
I’m learning that lack of social awareness and zero self confidence I had in myself in my 20s, which I completely flipped on the dime now in my 30s, is coming to bite me in my ass because I didn’t build a good enough social foundation for myself and it’s sooooo hard to do so now even with a million times more confidence social skills than I had before because I am not presented with those same social opportunities as frequently.
Nothing just gets better with a new decade. For some of us, shit clicks and we start making better decisions and being more present *and* future-minded. We don’t remain stuck in the past or limited by it. We commit to reinforcing positive habits and eliminating or neutralizing negative ones. We decide that our best days are ahead of us. We add through subtraction. We open our ears fully to the wisdom of elders and reinforce it by handing it down to younger versions of ourselves. We learn how lose, how to let go, how to succeed and how to cope with success. We can’t do everything, but we can do a lot. We can’t be first, but we can be next. The struggle toward the heights becomes enough to fill one’s heart.