We say age is just a number, but we still care about it. When the scary 29 rolls around, many start dreading their next birthday. However, when asked what years were the best in their lives, many older people (at least in Europe) said the ones between 30 and 34. So, maybe we’ve got it all wrong?
Whether dreaded or not, turning 30 can still be a big milestone, worthy of meming and joking about. This Instagram account for 30-somethings has a little bit of everything: workplace humor, existential dread, and funny, relatable snippets from a tercentenerian’s life.
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Entering your 30s is not as bad as some people make it out to be. Yes, yours truly is officially 30 as of June of this year. And, as an actual 30-something, I have to say nothing’s drastically changed. Children have been calling me “ma’am” for several years now, hangovers were never really easy for me even when I was younger, and I still haven’t been a guest at any wedding.
But maybe I’m just that type of person; I’ve never made New Year’s resolutions and didn’t go out drinking on my 18th birthday. I do, however, notice that I’m starting to like some adult hobbies and activities that seemed ridiculous before. I often find myself browsing real estate websites, I’ve even taken up cycling and bought some fancy equipment, and I enjoy knitting at home by the television more and more. Is this what getting old feels like?
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The @30somethingaf is a meme page created by Sarah Pilger. She has been entertaining us, 30-somethings, on Instagram from 2017, and has amassed a following of 402k in the process. Back in 2022, when we covered the page the first time, Sarah told us that she always had a comedic streak, and a meme page was a great way to be funny on the Internet.
“Memes and gifs were just getting started and I found myself looking at them thinking of other captions I would use that were funnier to me. I’ve always been interested in comedy and if I could go back in time, I would have pursued a career in writing for stand-up, sketch comedy or satirical sitcoms,” Sarah told us in 2022.
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Sarah said that she creates about what she knows; usually, what she finds funny, her audience deems relatable as well. She told Bored Panda that 30-somethings are people who are “learning to adult.” “Some are family-focused, some are career-driven, some still have the Peter Pan syndrome, and others are just plain lost in the growth they are expected to experience,” she told us previously.
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For Sarah, our 30s are the time when we finally understand what we want, not what others want of us. “Whether it’s material items, travel, children, investing or even more extreme partying, doors are opened that we didn’t have in our 20s. We also have way more autonomy than we did in our 20s, which is good and bad. With more responsibility comes more freedom, but the opposite is also true.”
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“I think people in their 30s are a lot smarter than we get credit for,” Sarah shared with us in 2022. “We graduated college during the Great Recession and are still succeeding. We are the oldest portion of the Millennial generation, which often gets a bad rap. While we do fall victim to the urge for instant gratification, we are also the leaders of our generation [who] have set an achievable and commendable standard,” she believes.
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There’s more scientific evidence that your 30s might be your happiest decade. A 2012 survey by insurer Aviva asked2,000 adults what is the best age to be, and the average came out to be 35. By that age, many people said, they had reached certain milestones but still had many good years ahead of them.
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The British social networking site Friends Reunited did a similar poll in 2012. They asked people over 40 what their best years were, and many said it was when they were 33. “By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a ‘can do’ spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities,” psychologist Donna Dawson commented in the survey’s findings.
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Not everyone achieves what they thought they would by their 30s. Yet comparing ourselves to peers and adhering to certain cultural trends and milestones will probably do us more harm than good. “The recipe for happiness will differ for each person,” psychotherapist Hilda Burke explained to Stylist.
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“Whatever it is, it needs to be your own formula. Copy and pasting other peoples’ life templates will never sate. If we are ever to be truly happy we first need to get to know ourselves and what makes us tick rather than trying to tick off a checklist of societal norms,” Burke emphasized.
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How many Pandas in their 30s do we have here? Tell us what your experience of turning 30 and living life as a tercentenarian has been like. Do you take naps more often? Or do you, like the priest from “Fleabag,” started to enjoy going to bet at 9:30 pm? Let us know those and your other 30s habits in the comments!
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