Ask HN: What's your best advice for someone turning 30 today? Just turned 30 and truly would appreciate some advice from you. Anything goes, be healthier, buy $BTC, don't buy $BTC, etc. |
Ask HN: What's your best advice for someone turning 30 today? Just turned 30 and truly would appreciate some advice from you. Anything goes, be healthier, buy $BTC, don't buy $BTC, etc. |
These people don't know you.
Learn to know yourself and make your own decisions, live your own life. It's yours to live and it'll be over way faster than you think.
Max out your 401k contributions and use an index fund.
Exercise daily - you've got about a decade before fitness becomes much harder.
See a therapist.
It is much more difficult to keep up (physically and mentally) with a 3 year old at 50ish than at 30ish.
If you do want it, it's a kind of trap[1] to delay because "the time is not right". It may never be "right", since it is a life changing event.
[1] - except in extreme circumstances, of course.
Have a plan and follow it all the way through. Its detail should scale with its time length. For example if you want to get healthy, maybe plan out those weekly meals and exercise. Or you want a house, a fine plan for now is to have one in 2-5 years. Figure out how much, general location and what you need to do today such as how much money to put aside for it. Super detailed long term plans are not necessarily better because you can’t predict the future.
You can’t predict the future but you should know that freak events happens. Eyjafjallajökull, 9/11, fukushima, and coronavirus just to name a few. The recent pandemic has probably put this in perspective for most people but I’ve lost a few loved ones over the recent years, to seemingly unfair and improbable reasons. The next lesson in mortality is just starting and it’s okay to let yourself feel those emotions, even with other people.
Despite what the law says, corporations are not people. There’s always more work and you’re replaceable. Always working isn’t a personality or hobby. Figure out that work life balance. It’s okay to say no and it’s okay to quit.
It’s okay to quit. Sunk cost is a thing. Despite how you might feel you’re still young, there’s still time but don’t waste it. A bad job, a bad relationship, a bad investment is worse than none.
tldr: Invest in index funds, friendship, family and yourself.
Also get your tests done regularly. Blood test, etc. are super important and can detect issues early on.
Health is the basic of everything else and you don't want to try to fix it when it's broken because it's going to be too late.
Another thing is try to find a passion. Could be part of work or part of hobby but one needs to have passion on something or he lives like a zombie. It can be anything from chasing girls to star gazing, but something you are so passionate at that you are willing to throw resources into it to get as professional as possible. Do yourself a favor and put up a blog and youtube channel about your passion and advertise yourself.
So now you are mentally and physcially fit, can't be better than that. The point is not to push yourself to do a lot of things in one day, but put a bit of extra care to yourself and invest a bit of time to your passions everyday for ten thousand days.
In the US do you get some kind of yearly health checkup even if you're healthy with your blood tested and so on?
How come the NHS doesn't do this in the UK, I wonder? If I went to my NHS doctor and said I felt fine but asked for a general health-check and blood test they'd tell me to GTFO. Are we missing out on something that we should be getting?
WTF, in France you're encouraged to do so, and there are even reminders by (e)mail for stuff like dentist and specific preventive checkups for women.
I have insurance from job so I always make arrangements through private clinics who are glad to refer you to any place. One visit (to make appointments, not the tests) costs about 200 but insurance covers 80% so it's kinda OK. You also don't need to do it annually unless you are into 50 or 60.
I'm 32 as well. Why does it feel like years go by quicker as you age? I can barely remember anything in my first 2 years of this decade.
When you're 2, a year is 1/2 of your life.
When you're 3, a year is 1/3 of your life.
When you're 30, a year is 1/30th of your life.
Your frame of reference for time is changing every day. Each day feels relatively shorter than the day before.
Strangely though, some years feel very long. To me that's explained by how much activity is going on, day to day. Like how when work is not busy, everyone says "slow day." 2020 for example was less busy for most people (stuck at home), so it was a "slow year."
I dunno, that's my experience anyway.
- Don't be afraid to try new things. (this is tech, jobs, locations, people, everything...)
- Don't be hard on yourself if something you thought was going to be "cool" or "interesting" turns out to not be.
- Don't be afraid to do the things that no one else wants to do.
- Evaluate your work/life balance and DO NOT let your work over take your life in the long run.
- Companies don't give a *$%# about you as a person, only what value you bring to them as a company. In a lot of ways that is a good thing but understand that when push comes to shove you are expendable.
Personal:
- Save for retirement, as much as you can (gentle voice, as this can be very challenging at times). Compound interest is an amazing beast that will set you up for life.
- Every raise you get put a % in retirement, and keep the rest. You need a real time reward for your hard work as much as you need to save. "Treat Yo Self"
- If you need help. ASK FOR IT. Don't sit around and wait for someone to hand you the answer. People are there just waiting to give you all the help you need.
- If you ask for help and get a crappy response, file away that person's response and ask someone else.
- Record milestones and keep them safe. Then when you need (in the low times) review those milestones and recognize how much you've accomplished. Essentially try to step away from the canvas and get out of the moment in time problem you are stuck in.
Last and most important:
- Help others, without ego, where you can. You got here by receiving help from so many people, pay that forward.
https://ritholtz.com/2014/02/the-best-investment-advice-youl...
Train your mind too: learn to not being angry, to be more tolerant, to lower your ego, to reduce your anxiety, to understand yourself and others, etc. Read a lot about human feelings. Be an appeased person.
In addition, Learning high value and rare skills will probably bring more money to you than random BTC buying, in addition of making you feel proud.
If you don't like exercising or aren't able to do so conventionally, keep exploring until you find something you enjoy that keeps you fit. You lose what you don't use. The benefits are proven and unenumerable, everything from improved mood and better overall health, plus being strong or a good lover improve your well-being in non-obvious ways.
Do you enjoy cleaning your house or doing your taxes? Do your enjoy taking your car in for maintenance?
Sure some people enjoy some or all of those things, but you still have to do them regardless. They're a part of being a responsible adult.
Likewise, regular exercise is a part of being a responsible steward of your own health and well-being. Establishing the habit, regardless of how much you enjoy it, is as important for your long-term well-being as regularly contributing to your retirement account.
Now does that mean you have to choose an exercise modality that you hate? No, of course not. But there are some tried and true modalities that are extremely effective and don't have to be torture. You might find them boring at first, but they're effective and if you could bottle their effects in a pill, you'd be the richest person on the planet.
Unlike cleaning or doing taxes, there are lots of very different ways to exercise. And most humans are conditioned to enjoy some form of exercise. It's likely you can find some activity that will give you a nice dopamine hit to keep you encouraged.
Plus, you never know what you might enjoy until you try it. I never thought I liked sports until college, when I discovered a love for playing tennis, squash, and flag football. I still hate watching any of these sports on TV, but I do love playing them.
Why? Because at 30 you still have time to develop great habits that last the rest of your life. Also the time when you can develop good muscle mass to prevent additional stress on your joints and delay potential back/joint pain from say 40, to 50-55.
Imagine you could have a half-hour conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Once you're done with the "what stock is about to blow up?" and "who will win the world series?" questions, what advice would you seek? What do you think Older You would say in response? Bonus points for journaling it out.[1]
I've found this exercise especially valuable for certain problems and goals. You can draw some pretty remarkable insights by separating from the emotions of the current moment and reframing your perspective.
[1] derived from this discussion: https://tim.blog/2020/02/27/josh-waitzkin-beginners-mind-sel...
2. Find a good therapist.
3. Speak with the therapist about inconsistencies between your thoughts, feelings and who you want to be.
don't be afraid to keep looking, I suppose. some people go through a dozen before finding one that works for them!
Keep in mind that the character traits that make someone an exciting one night stand might be the opposite of the character traits that you'll want in a long term term relationship where you live together all the time.
I know that covid makes this advice very difficult to follow :(
[0] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lysine-benefits
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Elements-Complex-Vitamin-Veget...
What is important is being healthy enough to heal. That means you need to eat well, exercise regularly and give yourself time to heal if you have to.
Edit: to be clear the injuries are obtained through risky sporting activities not through general wear and tear and general exercise.
To clarify my point about healing, most people don’t give themselves time to heal properly at any age and end up with a compromised outcome.
Right... isn't that what they're saying happens if you don't exercise enough so proving their point?
I know people are indifferent of sam altman, but I really like this article he posted https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...
This should actually be advice given to 20 year olds. Compound interest is magic:
If you put $5,000 aside every year and invest it at 7% p.a. from age 20-30 and then stop putting more money aside for the remainder of your life, you will have more money than if you started investing $5,000 each year starting at age 30 and for the rest of your life.
Easier said than done.
pick one high skill cap activity (so, any activity) separate from your work and commit to 300h a year of trying to get better at it for at least the next decade. do not directly aim to make money with this activity, just try to get as good as you can. (obv if you already have something like that that you enjoy, just keep going with that).
Commit to using the time left after carving out space for the above to doing whatever you need to become financially independent by 40, if you are not already. Make a 10 year plan for how you are going to get there and focus on carrying it out. This should be a very achievable goal given that you are on Hacker News.
The two items that are going to dominate your retirement are your finances and your health. If any one of these suffers, the other will as well. So start saving if you haven't already, or increase your savings otherwise. Be mindful what you put in your body, not only drugs and alcohol but food as well. Stop "trying" to exercise, do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises, consistently.
That said: you're not done with life. So keep learning, keep growing, keep enjoying every day. Set goals and work on them.
And the great Kardnial Offishal has imprinted the following quote in my head for life.
"Half the bullshit I thought, I'm glad I never said it"
Happy Birthday! :)
You can never know too much math.
Read The Four Steps To The Epiphany
- Regular health checks: you will start having health problems, but nobody knows what exactly
- Dating may get harder in 10 years, decide fast if you want wife/children
- eating the same amount of food that you did will get you fatter. You can balance it of course.
I guess that's it, so enjoy being 30, I loved it :)
Look back at "The Great Recession", had you bought anything, anytime between 2006-2012, you're better off today (Assuming you stayed employed and were not over-leveraged).
This is different from HODL-ing. If you double your money in a few hours, you were probably gambling and you should look for a less volatile asset to move into while you're ahead.
Money should flow to things in roughly this order: Max out your employer match, pay off high interest debt, Fully fund your Roth IRA, continue to try to max out traditional 401k then modify contributions to Roth 401k as you can afford. Once you're saving that ~24k per year and are debt free, then look to retail investing, paying off a car/home early.
If you aren't in a home but will want to be, there is some truth to the housing ladder and home equity is no joke. But remember home ownership isn't an investment, it is a lifestyle.
They have one targeting people retiring in 2065 (born 1998-2002), one for 2060 (born 1993-1997), and so on down to one for people who retired in 2015 (born 1949-1952), and one for people who were born before 1949.
Each of these invests in other Vanguard funds. As it gets closer to their target year, they decrease their stock fund holdings and increase their bond fund holdings.
The 2055 one, which would be the one aimed at someone who is currently 30, is 90% stock, 9% bonds. The stock fund portion is split about 60/40 between a Vanguard total US stock market fund and a Vanguard total international stock market fund.
You spend a week at work vs you spend the same week on a nice vacation making lots of new memories. Which one you'll feel took longer despite being the same?
I'm guessing what you mean is that houses require upkeep and they also come with certain benefits (e.g. more freedom with what you do with the house), but I'm wondering if you meant something different?
Over-testing leads to over-diagnosis, and that leads to over-treatment. These sometimes cause harm, and tend not to reduce all cause mortality.
https://amjmed.org/over-testing-why-more-is-not-better/
> When ordering unproven screening tests for asymptomatic patients without good reason, few consider the low yield, high cost per diagnosis made, and considerable toll of false positives. Anecdotal accounts of unexpected diagnoses discovered on “routine” testing help perpetuate over-testing. But even the best tests yield more false positives than true positives when the prevalence of what one is testing for is low. Others order tests to establish a “baseline,” but this has been shown repeatedly not to improve care for asymptomatic patients and consumes hundreds of millions of health care dollars per year.1, 2 Abnormal results that later prove erroneous engender unnecessary anxiety and needless follow-up testing. Ordering only medically indicated tests reduces our role as instigators of needless worry and, as an added benefit, helps lessen physicians’ workload.