from Hacker News

Ask HN: What's your best advice for someone turning 30 today?

by mgranados on 2/8/21, 6:40 PM with 89 comments

• by markus_zhang on 2/8/21, 8:16 PM

  Keep fit. Everything else depends on it. If you hate exercising (like me), try to find some sports that are fun to play, and find some friends who are willing to drag you to play.

  Also get your tests done regularly. Blood test, etc. are super important and can detect issues early on.

  Health is the basic of everything else and you don't want to try to fix it when it's broken because it's going to be too late.

  Another thing is try to find a passion. Could be part of work or part of hobby but one needs to have passion on something or he lives like a zombie. It can be anything from chasing girls to star gazing, but something you are so passionate at that you are willing to throw resources into it to get as professional as possible. Do yourself a favor and put up a blog and youtube channel about your passion and advertise yourself.

  So now you are mentally and physcially fit, can't be better than that. The point is not to push yourself to do a lot of things in one day, but put a bit of extra care to yourself and invest a bit of time to your passions everyday for ten thousand days.

• by artiscode on 2/8/21, 7:08 PM

  I'm turning 32 in 9 days. Here's what I would like to have said to myself, given the chance: Start thinking about yourself. I mean it. Figure out what you like, what makes you feel good, what you can own and enjoy. Stick to that special something, don't forget yourself. Don't try to please everyone at your own expense. Take vacations, pay attention to your mental health. You are entering a new decade, that's going to feel shorter than the one already past you. Learn how to concentrate your efforts. Hindsight is 20/20, use that to your advantage, learn from your past mistakes.

• by cliff_badger on 2/8/21, 7:27 PM

  Technical:

  - Don't be afraid to try new things. (this is tech, jobs, locations, people, everything...)

  - Don't be hard on yourself if something you thought was going to be "cool" or "interesting" turns out to not be.

  - Don't be afraid to do the things that no one else wants to do.

  - Evaluate your work/life balance and DO NOT let your work over take your life in the long run.

  - Companies don't give a *$%# about you as a person, only what value you bring to them as a company. In a lot of ways that is a good thing but understand that when push comes to shove you are expendable.

  Personal:

  - Save for retirement, as much as you can (gentle voice, as this can be very challenging at times). Compound interest is an amazing beast that will set you up for life.

  - Every raise you get put a % in retirement, and keep the rest. You need a real time reward for your hard work as much as you need to save. "Treat Yo Self"

  - If you need help. ASK FOR IT. Don't sit around and wait for someone to hand you the answer. People are there just waiting to give you all the help you need.

  - If you ask for help and get a crappy response, file away that person's response and ask someone else.

  - Record milestones and keep them safe. Then when you need (in the low times) review those milestones and recognize how much you've accomplished. Essentially try to step away from the canvas and get out of the moment in time problem you are stuck in.

  Last and most important:

  - Help others, without ego, where you can. You got here by receiving help from so many people, pay that forward.

• by chrisbennet on 2/8/21, 7:00 PM

  Put you retirement funds in something like Vanguard. Vanguard is customer owned but any low load broad based index fund will work.

  https://ritholtz.com/2014/02/the-best-investment-advice-youl...

• by bluewalt on 2/8/21, 9:54 PM

  Instead of being obsessed by financial investments, try to invest in yourself, you are your best asset. Everyone already said about training your body, I can't agree more.

  Train your mind too: learn to not being angry, to be more tolerant, to lower your ego, to reduce your anxiety, to understand yourself and others, etc. Read a lot about human feelings. Be an appeased person.

  In addition, Learning high value and rare skills will probably bring more money to you than random BTC buying, in addition of making you feel proud.

• by mywittyname on 2/8/21, 7:17 PM

  Exercise.

  If you don't like exercising or aren't able to do so conventionally, keep exploring until you find something you enjoy that keeps you fit. You lose what you don't use. The benefits are proven and unenumerable, everything from improved mood and better overall health, plus being strong or a good lover improve your well-being in non-obvious ways.

• by jmd509 on 2/8/21, 7:02 PM

  Without knowing anything about your personal situation, my specific advice will have little value. A better exercise would be this:

  Imagine you could have a half-hour conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Once you're done with the "what stock is about to blow up?" and "who will win the world series?" questions, what advice would you seek? What do you think Older You would say in response? Bonus points for journaling it out.[1]

  I've found this exercise especially valuable for certain problems and goals. You can draw some pretty remarkable insights by separating from the emotions of the current moment and reframing your perspective.

  [1] derived from this discussion: https://tim.blog/2020/02/27/josh-waitzkin-beginners-mind-sel...

• by hmmokidk on 2/8/21, 6:56 PM

  1. Start paying attention to your thought and feelings.

  2. Find a good therapist.

  3. Speak with the therapist about inconsistencies between your thoughts, feelings and who you want to be.

• by werber on 2/8/21, 7:13 PM

  You're younger than you think. You can still drastically alter the course of your life

• by fxtentacle on 2/8/21, 7:21 PM

  Think about if you want to have kids later. If you want and your path there is not obvious yet, now is the time for you to prioritize finding that special someone.

  Keep in mind that the character traits that make someone an exciting one night stand might be the opposite of the character traits that you'll want in a long term term relationship where you live together all the time.

  I know that covid makes this advice very difficult to follow :(

• by foreigner on 2/8/21, 7:10 PM

  Take care of your body. Stretch. Warm up. 30 is the threshold where you start to really lose the ability to heal. You can injure yourself now and your body just won't heal back to 100%. Ever.

• by always_left on 2/8/21, 7:04 PM

  Be consistent with your goals, this applies to any age. In 5 years, you'll wish you had spent more time on your goals (budget, hobby, etc.)

  I know people are indifferent of sam altman, but I really like this article he posted https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

• by kingnothing on 2/8/21, 6:56 PM

  Get your personal finances in order. Pay off all non-house non-car debt. Spend less. Start saving for retirement. Get a promotion and put all of that extra money in a boring low fee target date fund. You can expect to be able to live off of 4% of your investments for at least 30 years. For example, if you have $1M in investments, you can safely withdraw $40k / year from that. Plan accordingly.

• by chrisseaton on 2/8/21, 7:08 PM

  You are going to need to fight to maintain your physical fitness levels from your 20s. If you didn't need to do much to stay fit before you may suddenly find yourself having to do a lot just to keep the same basic level, and you may not be prepared for how much self-motivation will required to do that.

• by wly_cdgr on 2/12/21, 4:03 PM

  1h+ of moderate-to-heavy exercise daily for the rest of your life. get to and commit to remaining squarely in the middle of the healthy weight range for your height.

  pick one high skill cap activity (so, any activity) separate from your work and commit to 300h a year of trying to get better at it for at least the next decade. do not directly aim to make money with this activity, just try to get as good as you can. (obv if you already have something like that that you enjoy, just keep going with that).

  Commit to using the time left after carving out space for the above to doing whatever you need to become financially independent by 40, if you are not already. Make a 10 year plan for how you are going to get there and focus on carrying it out. This should be a very achievable goal given that you are on Hacker News.

• by hardtke on 2/8/21, 7:06 PM

  Whatever you decide to do professionally, focus on craftsmanship, particularly when no one is looking. The people that focus on craftsmanship enjoy their work more and get better results.

• by iooi on 2/8/21, 7:25 PM

  Happy birthday! If you made it this far, your life expectancy is a lot higher now. That means you should probably start thinking longer term -- whereas in your late teens you thought about college, in college you thought about your twenties, and in your twenties you were busy with your career, in your thirties you should start thinking about retirement.

  The two items that are going to dominate your retirement are your finances and your health. If any one of these suffers, the other will as well. So start saving if you haven't already, or increase your savings otherwise. Be mindful what you put in your body, not only drugs and alcohol but food as well. Stop "trying" to exercise, do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises, consistently.

  That said: you're not done with life. So keep learning, keep growing, keep enjoying every day. Set goals and work on them.

• by 12bits on 2/8/21, 7:02 PM

  Don't follow trends and hype, health and fitness is key, the sooner the better, find someone who makes you want to be better for youself, them and the world. Spend less and save more.

  And the great Kardnial Offishal has imprinted the following quote in my head for life.

  "Half the bullshit I thought, I'm glad I never said it"

• by _Microft on 2/8/21, 7:25 PM

  Since nobody seems to have said it yet:

  Happy Birthday! :)

• by mindcrime on 2/9/21, 1:20 AM

  Exercise regularly. Eat a healthy diet. If you don't wake up feeling rested, talk to your doctor and see about going for a sleep study or whatever.

  You can never know too much math.

  Read The Four Steps To The Epiphany

• by xiphias2 on 2/8/21, 7:18 PM

  - Buy and hold BTC, keep it simple. Quit job when you can live from 4% of your wealth and sell a few years worth of BTC at that point to stomach the volatility

  - Regular health checks: you will start having health problems, but nobody knows what exactly

  - Dating may get harder in 10 years, decide fast if you want wife/children

  - eating the same amount of food that you did will get you fatter. You can balance it of course.

  I guess that's it, so enjoy being 30, I loved it :)

• by orsenthil on 2/8/21, 6:53 PM

  Don't worry about anything, don't count anything and do what you like to do.

• by fellow_human on 2/8/21, 6:55 PM

  People will just be giving you advice based on their own subjective values. It might be stuff like "spend more time with your family" or "make sure you're contributing to your pension" or some other abitrary thing someone older is kicking *themselves* about. I'm turning 29 soon. One thing I've learned is you should make sure you are able to listen to yourself and live life according to your own values whatever they may be. We all have to die sometime so I guess make sure you're making the most of your time here on earth according to what *you* truly value. That will surely be time well spent. I understand that this might be paradoxical given I'm clearly giving you advice based on my own values which is self knowledge. My conclusion is why look to others for life advice given that there are practically an unlimited number of ways you can live life, you probably have the answers inside yourself. (EDIT: Psychotherapy might help you find those answers)

• by AnimalMuppet on 2/8/21, 9:29 PM

  People matter. Relationships matter, even if you're an introvert. Get better at interacting with people.

• by fl0wenol on 2/8/21, 7:35 PM

  Don't do it, I tried it and it's terrible.

• by imnotlost on 2/8/21, 7:26 PM

  Don't ask for advice, don't follow advice, don't give advice.

  These people don't know you.

  Learn to know yourself and make your own decisions, live your own life. It's yours to live and it'll be over way faster than you think.

• by vzaliva on 2/8/21, 7:10 PM

  Around this age people get comfortable in their ways and many stop learning new things. Fight this. Learn and try new things professionally and personally. Get out of your comfort zone and try new stuff.

• by tjalfi on 2/8/21, 11:22 PM

  Here is some advice I wish I had followed when I turned 30.

  Max out your 401k contributions and use an index fund.

  Exercise daily - you've got about a decade before fitness becomes much harder.

  See a therapist.

• by rvieira on 2/10/21, 11:44 AM

  As others mention, consider if you want kids or not.

  It is much more difficult to keep up (physically and mentally) with a 3 year old at 50ish than at 30ish.

  If you do want it, it's a kind of trap[1] to delay because "the time is not right". It may never be "right", since it is a life changing event.

  [1] - except in extreme circumstances, of course.

• by zwieback on 2/8/21, 7:04 PM

  get a decent bicycle and ride it a lot

• by markwusinich on 2/12/21, 9:59 PM

  Besides everything everyone else said, keep a book of your friends, and how to contact them. Then as often as you can, reach out to them. Even just a text like "Hey, how's life" is good to keep a friendship going.

• by GloriousKoji on 2/8/21, 8:01 PM

  Now’s a great time to take inventory of your life. Really focus on “health”. How is your physical health, mental health, social health and fiscal health? Keep in mind those 4 items are not completely independent and it’s a nontrivial multivariable equation to solve. But tackling them one at a time is a valid strategy, just have a plan.

  Have a plan and follow it all the way through. Its detail should scale with its time length. For example if you want to get healthy, maybe plan out those weekly meals and exercise. Or you want a house, a fine plan for now is to have one in 2-5 years. Figure out how much, general location and what you need to do today such as how much money to put aside for it. Super detailed long term plans are not necessarily better because you can’t predict the future.

  You can’t predict the future but you should know that freak events happens. Eyjafjallajökull, 9/11, fukushima, and coronavirus just to name a few. The recent pandemic has probably put this in perspective for most people but I’ve lost a few loved ones over the recent years, to seemingly unfair and improbable reasons. The next lesson in mortality is just starting and it’s okay to let yourself feel those emotions, even with other people.

  Despite what the law says, corporations are not people. There’s always more work and you’re replaceable. Always working isn’t a personality or hobby. Figure out that work life balance. It’s okay to say no and it’s okay to quit.

  It’s okay to quit. Sunk cost is a thing. Despite how you might feel you’re still young, there’s still time but don’t waste it. A bad job, a bad relationship, a bad investment is worse than none.

  tldr: Invest in index funds, friendship, family and yourself.

• by HDMI_Cable on 2/8/21, 7:23 PM

  Try to keep the ambition and drive that you had when you were younger. I'm young myself, so I haven't had to face this, but I often see driven and motivated people become complacent once they hit that 30 mark.

• by staticautomatic on 2/8/21, 6:52 PM

  Save more money.

• by steve_g on 2/8/21, 7:25 PM

  Move, sit, pick, and carry in such a way as to protect your back. Lift with your legs, not your back. Face the load you're lifting.

• by wicket on 2/8/21, 7:50 PM

  Leave your comfort zone. Move to another country, learn a new language and embrace another culture.

• by freebee16 on 2/8/21, 7:22 PM

  you'll spend the rest of your life helping other people. Dont fight this - it is a good thing.

• by minikomi on 2/9/21, 1:37 AM

  Buy a good bicycle and explore.

• by gmoore on 2/8/21, 7:21 PM

  don't worry about it for one single second. Turning 30 is no different than any other day. It only has power if you define it with power.