For most people, when a milestone birthday begins
approaching, they begin thinking a lot.
This is particularly true when approaching a new decade such as thirty,
forty, or fifty. People start thinking
“Am I where I want to be in my life? Are things going to change? Oh man, I
can’t believe I’m going to be thirty!
Where has the time gone?” There
are many different sentiments that people have about aging. Some people embrace it, and others will say,
often in a joking manner, that getting older is not such a great thing. As my thirtieth birthday approached, there
was no shortage of people teasing me with the typical “dirty thirty” and “it’s
all downhill from here” banter. But as I
write this, I am seventeen months into my thirties and for me, my thirties so
far have been nothing short of amazing.
When I say “amazing” I don’t mean that things have been perfect. In
fact, far from it. Since I’ve hit thirty,
there have been incredible highs as well as devastating lows. I’ve learned to embrace and celebrate the
highs and keep my head up and plow through the lows. It hasn’t always been easy, but attitude is
everything. Your whole life is in your
hands and it is what you make it.
As I reflect on how far I’ve come since turning thirty, I
now see that with each decade of my life thus far, there have been major
changes, even as far back as when I was ten.
When I was ten and eleven years old, I began focusing more in school and
being more social. I wasn’t a straight A
student, but I achieved better grades, made more friends, and turned the tables
with a lot of schoolmates I had problems with simply by changing my attitude. When I was nineteen years old, I was a
student at Western Michigan University.
One day in November, I was done with classes for the day and was
preparing to go to work at my part time job which I worked three nights a week
at a local restaurant. As I was about to
leave, I heard a knock on my apartment door.
When I opened it, I saw my dad standing there. He hadn’t called and said he was going to
make the two-and-a-half-hour drive to come see me, so I could tell right away that
something was amiss. “Hey Dad” I said
confusingly. “What’s going on?”. He didn’t answer. “Dad?” after a good ten seconds, he finally embraced
me with tears in his eyes and told me that my mom had passed away earlier that
day. I simply couldn’t believe what I was
hearing. I was in so much shock, I could
barely articulate a response to what he said.
It didn’t seem real. I had to
have been dreaming. But it was,
unfortunately, very real and all I could do was deal with it as best as I
could. After the initial shock wore off,
and I went through the grieving process, things got weird. Even though I had been away at college, a
life without my mom around was a bizarre and sad feeling. I was in a haze for the next several months
and although I continued to live a typical college life of partying and good
times, I sometimes felt very hollow. Even with the comfort of my friends, my
life seemed dreamlike and I found it difficult to focus on anything. I thought about my mom every single day. But then my twentieth birthday approached. School was about to let out for the year, and
soon I would be heading back to my hometown, working a full-time summer job,
spending time with old friends and family, and taking a break from school. By this time, I had a chance to reflect on
what happened and the haziness of my life subsided. At one point, I think it was on a random
Saturday night after a party, things became crystal clear and I had a decision
to make; I could either dive face first into a life of drugs, alcohol, and
despair to cope with the pain or I could not let this beat me down and I could
rise above the pain and put that energy into being happy, having fun, and
improving myself. It was a crucial moment. The last five months had been weird and the
blow to my family was devastating, leaving a black hole in my life. But was I alive? Was I healthy? Did I have a lot to be thankful for even
though my mom was gone? The answer to
all three of those questions was “Yes”.
Would my mom want me to spiral down a path of self-destruction? Did I
really want to throw away everything I had in my life at that point, including
a great family, great friends, and a college education? “No” on both accounts. It was as if I had awakened from the five-month
dream I was living in, and the choice was clear; Time to start improving
things. I subconsciously began a
transformation including taking less for granted, treating people better, being
truer to who I am, not letting things bother me too much, and getting into
better physical shape. The most
challenging part of the transformation was the physical part. I had a busy schedule and didn’t always
prioritize exercise. I stood around six
feet tall and weighed one hundred and eighty-five pounds. I wasn’t obese, but clearly not in great
shape. I began running at twenty-two in
December of 2008 and soon dropped to one hundred and fifty-five pounds. I felt better than I ever had before and when
I reached twenty-nine, I looked back at how much I had changed during my
twenties. I had earned a college degree,
lost thirty pounds, suffered a tragic loss, rebuilt myself, moved to Chicago
and Los Angeles, became more carefree, had lots of friends, and discovered my passion
for running.
When my thirtieth birthday rolled around, I didn’t
experience any kind of weird feelings about getting older or a milestone
birthday. Instead I thought to myself “what’s
going to be instore for me in the next decade?”
And man, has a lot happened since then.
I’ve since dealt with the tragic loss of our dog, gotten married,
improved myself professionally, cleaned up my diet, and continued to push my
limits in running. When I was thirty I
ran my first ultra-marathon; the Bulldog 50K, I attempted a 100K race in
Foresthill, was handed my first DNF, learned from my mistakes, and began
running longer distances on more challenging mountain trails. Over the three years I worked at BlackLine,
we had quadruped in size, gone through a full IPO, and filed our first 10-K. I learned a ton, and found a better job that
has allowed me to learn even more. I’ve
learned how to be a good husband (still learning), and began eating
healthier. I have since incorporated more
fruit and vegetables into my diet, placing less emphasis on meat, and even
eating at vegan restaurants for the first time and going vegetarian one or two
days a week. My morning breakfast now
consists of a piece of peanut butter toast, an apple, and a cup of Greek
yogurt. I’ve been drinking lemon water,
eating avocados, and, thanks to the juicer my wife and I purchased a few weeks
ago, been drinking homemade juice. I’m
one month shy of thirty-one and a half now and I still have eight and a half
years left in this decade. I plan to
keep all of this up and will keep learning and growing throughout my thirties
and inevitably, when I hit my forties, there will be new challenges, new
setbacks, and most importantly, new experiences and opportunities to learn and
grow. It will be no different than how
it’s been with my twenties and thirties.
Milestone birthdays should not come with fear. If you’re living life the way you should,
they should come with a sense of adventure. Instead of looking at what you don’t have,
look at what you’ve accomplished, set goals, and be excited about what is in store
for you next. It doesn’t matter who you
are, if you aren’t constantly challenging yourself, learning new things, and
finding new ways to improve yourself and your quality of life, you’re missing
out on what life is all about. There’s a
whole world out there for us. Get after
it!
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