Turning 30: How do I feel about it?
There is a Chinese saying thousands of years ago by Confucius: “Thirty is the age for a man to stand up.” What “stand up” means in Chinese culture is that the person should have established his career and set up a family. I used “he” because this did not apply to women because women at that time. Women got married even when they were fourteen so that they would have had a family when they turned 30, and they didn’t need to work.
Even though some women still follow the path of putting marriage as the main thing in their life and living on their husband’s support, society has changed now. Society expects a woman to not only look after the family but also have a successful career if they still want to or planning to get married.
In a month, I will be turning 30. Instead of focusing on what society expects me to be, it would be more meaningful to figure out what I want in life and how can I achieve them. Looking at where I am now, I am really grateful to thank myself in my 20s. Thank you, myself in my 20s, for all the hard work, each step that I took, each opportunity that I caught, each new idea that I tried, so now I can carry on moving forward on the track that I put myself on, which I know that I won’t regret. I want my 40-year-old self saying to myself in my 30s that I made good decisions in all my key decisions.
There were moments when I felt that I was loved by one more person in this world. There were moments when I realised that I couldn’t be a kid anymore. There were moments when I thought that now it was the time to take on more responsibilities and be more sophisticated. Responsibilities are scary in a way that I need to learn to be the person who signs off everything. Maybe this is scary for me now, but it may be fine for me in a few years time. It is a process of learning and growing up or getting more mature.
