It's the favorite joke of the sitcom - group of 20 year olds, living in some city, they get depressed upon turning 30. In modern life, 30 is a big deal. 21 is the age when you're no longer a teenager and have entered your adult years - by 30, you should have figured this out.
Because apparently turning 30 is the end of life as you know it.
My aunt called me on the first of the month to wish me a happy first day of my birthday month. She's a literature person, so it's fitting that she suggested I mark the month with a post each day. At first that seemed overwhelming...like May wasn't busy enough. But I like the idea of doing some extra reflection on milestone birthdays. For my 21st, I asked myself what my goal was for my ultimate contribution to the world. That was when I came up with the idea of opening a research center in Jamaica some day that would also have many opportunities for the K-12 group to be exposed to different parts of STEM. (Shameless plug, I talk about this in the Developer Chapter of the recently released Women in Tech book. Also, how crazy is it that I can shameless plug an actual book that I contributed to? How is this real life?)
So what are my goals for this? To reflect on my 20s, the good, the bad, the ugly. Quite frankly, I’m feeling pretty lucky these days, but as someone who identifies with Hermione, I’m always thinking about how I can improve. To look forward to the next decade of my life. To think about what I want to accomplish in this decade, and maybe update those life goals, see what I still like about them, what I can improve about them. And at the very least, to end the month not feeling like this dude...
Let's at least promise to never get how whiny Ted gets about pretty much everything.
...and more like Beyoncé.
Life can't be that bad if you're channeling Beyoncé.