On Turning 30

“In your twenties, you make your habits. From thirty onward, your habits make you.”

I read this when I turned twenty and took it to heart. For ten years, I have consciously tried to build routines and orbits that fulfill me. Establishing a workout routine was the hardest. Establishing social rhythms was the easiest. And establishing what I want to do as a career… has been difficult.

I turn thirty next week. For me, this is a big, scary birthday. As a teenager, people in their mid-twenties always seemed so “adult” to me in a way I thought I would never be. This made me forget the gravitas of thirty until I was a year out, suddenly gripped with the crisis of “who do I want to be in an era of life I never thought I’d make it to?”

Friends report that thirties are some of the best years, and that your twenties are for trying a ton of different things to find out what you like. The consensus is that once you are thirty, you are able to double down on the things that bring you joy, the things you have discovered are rewarding. Other folks tell me that “I’m [x] years old still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” but I find this platitude boring and trite. I think it removes the responsibility from giving your life intention and purpose. While it may be true that I don’t know what life holds for me, I feel significantly more grown up than I did ten years ago, and I think it is important to comb through lessons learned in order to fully enjoy my thirties.

Here is where I spent my twenties:

• 20 to 22: Bronxville, New York
• 23 to 26: Portland, Oregon
• 26 to 29: Seattle, Washington

Bronxville was for college. Portland was for enjoying myself. Seattle was for building a career.

The biggest lesson I learned in college was that there existed people who read more books than me. In high school, I could get away with lying (a lot) because no one challenged me when I cited sources. In college, my peers challenged me, corrected me, referenced books that I had heard of but never read. I realized that I had a lot of work to do, and I built up a curriculum (at and away from school) so that one day I could hold my own in conversations with my peers.

In 2013, after two and a half years of college, I dropped out, moved back home, and worked as a barista for a couple months until a customer told me about Portland, Oregon and how cool it was. Cheap living, they said, cool art scene, good food, great coffee. I quit my job nearly immediately and caught a bus with $600 and a personality, planning to make it work in Portland.

I worked at Powell’s City of Books for three years, where I met many people who had read many more books than me. My Powell’s co-workers were some of my favorites, because they were bookworms who were socialized enough to talk eloquently about the books they were reading. After all, they were all booksellers, and my time spent with them inevitably turned me into a bookseller as a personality trait rather than just a profession.

Eventually, Portland tired me. The pace was slow, too slow for my New York sensibilities, so in 2016 I moved to Seattle which I called “Portland if it put on a tie.” I was immediately happier. The people in Seattle walked quickly and with intention, and they got angry if you made their coffee too slow. I loved this, as it felt more normal to me than the kindness of Portland. I felt a pulse in Seattle, and I would joke that I could feel the money flying around the city. I believed that if I stood at the right intersection and stuck my hand in the air, I could catch some of it.

This turned out to be true: Seattle thrust me from cafe job to online retail to a career in tech. I loved walking through South Lake Union, Amazon-town where my friends worked. Here I would play hardcore electronic music in my headphones, imagining all of the information being managed in the buildings around me. I would joke that in these neighborhoods, you could throw a rock in any direction and hit an Amazon employee.

Seattle reinforced the importance of “strategic positioning”, or the idea that financial success is less about your skills and abilities, and instead about your proximity to the flow of money.

I was very concerned about money because I felt I had so little of it as a bookseller/barista. I invested a lot of time trying to put myself in a position where I would never have to worry about a medical bill again, or about being able to make rent or buy groceries. I budgeted aggressively, and learned that “feeling rich” was less about having a lot of money and more about having the freedom to do the things I liked.

I considered the classic question, “If money wasn’t a problem, how would I spend my time?” And the answer was that I would spend my time in cafes, reading and writing. I did some quick math, calculating that if I spent $5 a day on coffee, all I would need to live my dream was $150 a month. I considered this discovery as a windfall of spiritual health.

I was more financially stable in Seattle, which allowed me to explore things I had never considered before, most notably fashion. As a bookworm, I neglected my appearance for the most part until I got a job at a luxury menswear boutique. Here, I rubbed shoulders with customers who had more money than they knew what to do with, so we sold them expensive clothing that allowed them to signal to other rich people that they were players of the game. I learned how to speak this language, and understood how to use fashion as a tool, as well as an art form.

Ultimately, I think my main obsession through my twenties was my social orbit. If you have ever talked to me at length, I will predictably end up talk about orbits. My orbit is my habit of regularly showing up at social hubs like cafes, co-working spaces, bars, Twitch streams, Discord servers, cities, and more. I imagine myself as a lesser comet, making its rounds at varying intervals to connect with people that I love. I love orbits so much that my YouTube channel is called “The Orbit.” One of my more recent published works is called “Sustainable Loops” because what is a sustainable loop but an orbit? A nonsensical phrase that echoes in my head is “you cannot defeat a circle,” which I interpret as “a self-regulating system is more powerful than any other tool.”

As a teenager, I remember reading about “mavens” in Malcom Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”. Gladwell described these mavens as information specialists, people who manage to orbit between many different social circles that would otherwise never overlap with each other. I read this and immediately saw myself and who I wanted to be as an adult: they guy who knows a guy.

At 29, I feel very lucky to reap the rewards of intentionally connecting with people I love. I socialize like it’s my job (it is my job) and this has only opened doors for me. Simply talking to people has yielded some of my my most valued friendships, my most interesting jobs, and my greatest loves. I am extremely grateful that meeting people has never, ever been a problem for me.

But what does this mean for thirty? The answer is different for everyone. To me, thirty means having a nice bathrobe and stay-at-home pants. Thirty means having a clean apartment that I enjoy spending time in. Thirty means responsible romantic relationships (informed by all of the irresponsible ones in my twenties). Thirty means portioning a part of my life to support my neighbors. Thirty means knowing how to make healthy, beautiful meals for myself.

To think back to my first barista jobs, I remember seeing hundreds of people come into the cafe and identifying the people that I wanted to be. I created a vision-board in my head based on the select few customers that seemed to have it together. These people ordered Americanos (no room for cream), they wore expensive winter coats, and were polite but never lingered very long to chat because they were on the move. I so badly wanted to present as competent, just like these people, because throughout my twenties I often felt incompetent. Finally, I feel like I have accumulated the confidence to know what I am doing in some regards. I go my favorite cafes in my favorite jackets, and order Americanos when I am en route to meet new friends.

While my twenties was all about eking out a living, I hope that my thirties will be about living. I know what I like, I know some of my strengths, and I have a general idea as to where I would like to be. I dream of living in Detroit, a city with a history of rebirth. After work (whatever it ends up being), I dream of returning to a comfortably furnished home that I love. I dream of reading an excellent book in a cafe and meeting someone who has already read it and has lots to say about it. I dream of traveling light.

This week, I am celebrating my birthday with good food and barely any company. I made myself a reservation for one at a nice restaurant. These solo-dates are when I feel most myself, or at least the version of myself that I would like to be. In front of a well-plated meal, paired with a good glass of wine, I feel fancy, accomplished, and happy. It’s where I feel most ready to turn thirty.