It was just an idea...

Just like many who have gone before me, I was not excited about turning thirty. It’s not that my twenties were all that good to me, in fact there were a lot of very hard times in that decade. It wasn’t that I was afraid of getting older, that had never phased me before. There was just something about the number that was bothering me. It is such a big, round number and these decade markers always get so much pressure put on them. For months I was watching online as people I knew were preparing for their “dirty thirty” parties and celebrations. I participated in some of these and found people to be divided between excitement and sadness about the decade change. 

So, as I was dreading the big 3-0 and thinking about just ignoring the date all together, I got an idea. It stemmed from the realization that I tend to let things happen to and around me without always expressing how I feel about a given situation. It could be as simple as a sales clerk treating me poorly but I don’t tend to confront friends and family and I don’t write reviews for poor service. To be fair, I don’t typically write reviews for good service either. A friend asked me how I expected things to change if I didn’t do anything about it, if I didn’t share my feelings.  

That idea to share my feelings got me to think about other areas of my life that I would like to change and things I would like to try. I started to think of thirty as a good time to take control and become a stronger, better person. I have heard of bucket lists before, things people want to do before they die, and I thought this could be a great way to take control of thirty and a productive way to enter a new decade. It certainly has to be better than wallowing in self pity remembering the days of youth gone by. 

So from that simple idea came the Thirty for 30 list. Here’s to a great year!