Your Thirties Are the Best Years of Your Life, Unfortunately

I’ll start with the good news: These are the best years of your life. That’s right. You are currently at your overall happiest, most attractive, and most employable. (You were better looking in your twenties, but you were also a total nutcase.) This brings us to the bad news: Seriously, these are the best years of your life.

Go ahead. Take a long, hard look at your thirtysomething face in the mirror while you consider all that you have—but mostly have not—accomplished up until this point. Not exactly what you had in mind for your so-called prime, was it?

You thought by now you would have figured all your shit out and evolved into a superior version of yourself. A more financially and emotionally stable You. (You 2.0, if you will.) Someone who lives their passion every single day, has resolved all their childhood trauma, and is at least on their way to becoming debt- and mortgage-free.

Yeah, not quite. Instead, you’ll have to settle for working a job you barely remember applying for while being only slightly wiser and less neurotic than you were as a young adult, mostly because you no longer have the energy to give a shit about half the stuff you stressed over in your twenties. Also, switching from alcohol to edibles has helped.

Another way of looking at it is that your thirties are the least worst years of your life. Sure, you finally have some financial independence, just not the type where you can do things like travel out of state or fix your Camry’s leaky radiator. (Also, you still drive a Camry.) Most importantly, your thirties are when you start to figure out who you truly are as a person, even if you’re not exactly thrilled with what you find.

Your personal relationships are never going to be better than they are right now either. Which is a tough pill to swallow, considering you’re an absolute mess in that department. Just not as big a mess as you were when you first ventured into the confusing world of post-college dating, or will be once the mounting demands of middle age make it increasingly difficult to maintain friendships and devote quality time to your partner.

Yep, this right here is as good as it gets, sadly. Not that you don’t enjoy yourself from time to time. After all, you have your little hobbies, like hiking and napping. Nothing screams “I’m living my best life!” like staying in on a Friday night to watch YouTube videos of a guy eating expired military rations. Still, it must be disappointing to find out that the dials on your excitement meter barely make it past mild mirth, even at your zenith as a human being.

As underwhelming as it may seem, you better savor every mediocre moment of it because it could—and soon will—be worse. Think about what you have to look forward to next: your forties. The age at which all your bad habits become cemented as character traits. You’ll spend the entire decade trying to convince yourself and everyone else that you’re still “young of mind” while your rapidly declining body makes it abundantly clear that you’re on the back nine of your life. More like the back six if you factor in your family health history and poor lifestyle choices.

After that, it’s all downhill. Unless you make enough money—or, more realistically, inherit your parents’ money—to retire early to some beachfront location and turn back your biological clock by getting stem cell injections and testosterone replacement therapy. In which case, your fifties will be the best years of your life.