I started my twenties at the airport in Columbus, Ohio — not ideal, but given my destination (Paris), an acceptable birthday location. “Happy birthday,” the desk agent told me, smiling slightly as she examined my documents for checking my two gigantic suitcases to Charles de Gaulle, the contents of which would hopefully sustain me for three months of studying abroad. “Thanks,” I replied. This interaction feels like ages ago.
Turning 30 is usually viewed as a milestone. Take Taylor Swift’s 2019 essay for Elle, “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30.” Look around at all the different “30 Under 30” lists identifying promising young people doing big things that warrant acclaim and attention — lists I no longer qualify for, because I turned 30 on January 3. Hey, if Taylor Swift can thrive in her thirties, maybe I can, too! (Tay Tay is also a billion dollar music mogul and icon of our time, and also I’m a dog person, but otherwise we’re basically the same.)
I thought about coming up with my own list of advice — things I’ve learned over time before stumbling over the big three-oh line. Then I remembered that I’m an average person, and I don’t have my shit together, so I tossed that out the window. As Winnie the Pooh says, “I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.”
What I can offer, however, are thirty quotes I’ve collected over time — wise words from other, smarter people about life and relationships and all sorts of things that seem like good words to keep in mind as I round the corner into a new decade. Some of them are on my wall, or I’ve used as Instagram captions, or I’ve just thought about a lot — I’ve added some thoughts to a few with particular meaning for me. Hope you enjoy.
(Note: Some of these people aren’t the best — please don’t take this as an endorsement of, say, Teddy Roosevelt’s racism. The man just knew his way around a motivational speech.)
- “Do something with the wildness that confounds you.” — from “Elegy for a Year” by Joseph Fasano
- “No one can argue with enthusiasm, especially when it is over the top.” – @Semi-Rad (Brendan Leonard), from his annually-updated essay, “Make 20XX the Year of Maximum Enthusiasm”
- “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” — Teddy Roosevelt
- “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A. Shedd
I have this quote hanging on the wall in my office, and I glance at it any time I need a reminder that things requiring bravery is often what makes them worth doing.
- “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends.” — Eeyore
- “Only hang around people that are positive and make you feel good. Anybody who doesn’t make you feel good, kick them to the curb. And the earlier you start in life, the better. The minute anybody makes you feel weird and non-included or not supported, you know, either beat it or tell them to beat it.” — Amy Poehler
- “You don’t want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath. You can’t fill up when you’re holding your breath.” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
- “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners—I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. … It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” — Ira Glass
Here is a beautiful visual and audio representation of this quote: - “Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune” — “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman
- “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.” — Dr. Suess
- “Remember what they say;
There’s no shortcut to a dream.
It’s all blood and sweat,
And life is what you manage in between” — Broken Bells, “October”
I used this line for my high school senior yearbook quote. I know, I’m very deep. - “Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.” — Mary Engelbreit
- “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.” — Rafiki
This may seem like conflicting advice with #12 above, but I think they actually complement each other. It’s both important not to let the past keep you from looking forward and to take what you’ve learned thus far into that future. - “I don’t care what you think about me. I don’t think about you at all.” — Coco Chanel
This one’s just petty and I love it. - “Don’t let the muggles get you down.” — Ron Weasley
- “I am on my own mountain standing in my own sun.” — Shonda Rhimes
- “When all else fails, there’s always delusion.” — Conan O’Brien
- “Don’t wait for permission to do something creative.” — Ava DuVernay
- “Things do not change; we change.” — Henry David Thoreau
- “If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow.” — Beyonce
- “Wisdom is to have dreams big enough not to lose sight when we pursue them.” — Oscar Wilde
I have this quote in French on a magnet I keep on my fridge that I don’t remember getting. I can’t find a definitive source for Oscar Wilde having said this, but it’s a good quote, so I’m keeping it. It sounds better in French, though: “La sagesse, c’est d’avoir des rêves suffisamment grands pour ne pas les perdre de vue lorsqu’on les poursuit.” - “You can be happy, or you can be unhappy. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” — Walt Disney
Easier said than done, but a good thing to keep in mind. - “You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” — Louise Erdrich
- “There are real problems and then there’s everything else…I used to be so anxious about daily ups and downs. I give all of my worry, stress, and prayers to real problems now.” — Taylor Swift
You didn’t think I’d leave off Taylor, did you? This is from the essay I mentioned above, and probably the quote on this list I think about the most. Again, easier said than done — as a fairly anxious person, I’ve spent much of my adult life giving myself stomachaches and lending worry to problems that are not “real problems.” I know what real problems are, and I’m working on this. - “Adventure is out there” — from “Up”
- To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That’s crudely put, but… If we’re not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?
—“To Be Alive” by Gregory Orr - “Everyone you meet always asks if you have a career, are married, or own a house as if life was some kind of grocery list. But no one ever asks you if you are happy.” — Heath Ledger
- “Let’s think the unthinkable, let’s do the undoable. Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” — Douglas Adams
- Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.
— Excerpt from “The Old Astronomer to His Pupil” by Sarah Williams - “By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” — A.A. Milne, House at Pooh Corner
I want to end on this one because I think 30 is one of those ages where people feel a lot of pressure to do more, as if they haven’t done enough up to this point, as if they’re behind. I’m trying to remind myself that turning 30 is not something to be afraid of.
Nobody ever looked at someone who died at age 30 and said, “Well, at least they lived a long and happy life!” 30 is not old. 30 has a long way to go. 30 is flirty and thriving. 30 has her whole life ahead of her. She is not behind; she is exactly where she needs to be. She is happy to have made it to 30; She is looking forward to whatever is next. She will get there some day.
