has been awesome so far.
We had planned to go skiing for a week with a group of friends. It didn't happen when no friends wanted to join the group! So I was worried that it would be a damp squib and add to my concern at reaching the age. But it has been so much fun. A great night out in Shoreditch with 19 of my favourite people and then the surprise of playing at St Andrews, the home of golf yesterday. With a caddie. A once in a lifetime experience.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Being 30.
I have reached 30. Unlike some rock stars I have not lived fast, died young. I have not burnt out early, I am not a blazing comet flying a firey line through space before exploding in millions of shiny fireworks. I am quite happy of the former and not quite sure what the latter means. All in all, life is great. Saying that....
You begin your twenties with dreams and end them in reality. We are programmed to believe that if we reach thirty and are not yet established, not yet someway down the career path or halfway up the career ladder, the strong likelihood is that we won't get to the end or climb to the top. Even though there are thousands of exceptions to this rule, it is still VERY hard not to be daunted by the big THREE O. Add to this the biological factors of women's ticking clocks and men's falling labidos (not a problem at the moment but will keep you updated) and the age is one to approach with trepidation.
- When I was five years old I was put in a taxi marked 'primary school'. In this taxi I passed through the villages of Times-Tables, Paintingwith Potatoes and Early Spellings. For the most part it was a happy taxi ride and all the way the taxi driver told me exactly where we were going and what to do.
-I then got placed on a bus for secondary school, journeying through various short tunnels of love (after a disturbing voyage through the darkness of Puberty), getting out at a number of sports fields and music classes which added potential routes to the map of my life I had spread out on my knee. But even at this stage, I ignored some of the paths, figuring that I should stick to the main road. I thought that side roads would only lead you to limit your options. I did not realise sometimes they can lead to greater destinations.
- At the age of 16 I was instructed to trim my choices and at 18 the options got even smaller. Destination unknown, I chose the ambiguous road marked Marketing Management. I knew that this road did not end in a single route - I knew it would open up some options although I didn't know if I'd want to take any of those options when I got to them.
- Now at this point things sped up and I was passing side roads on my left and right without really looking down them. It was full speed ahead and not now possible to circle backwards and try my luck down those paths I had earlier ignored. A life in sport had gone - I had not spent enough time on that path so did not have the skills or experience required. Music was a little more possible, although I would have to choose now or I would not have the necessary skills or experience either. If, at this point, this had been my dream, perhaps I would have chosen that route but it was not until a couple of years later when I realised the pure joy of standing on a stage playing songs you have written.
- It was now, having left University when I could have pursued a dream. Sport was long over but maybe music? But as I wasn't actually very good at any instrument, this would have required full dedication and, having come so far down the road and with a full concrete mass of education behind me, this would be a full hardy diversion. And probably be a cul-de-sac. And so I entered the motorway marked 'Career'.
- Not that it hasn't been fun, exciting, interesting, compelling. The eight or so years I have spent on the M-Career have been all of those things. It's just that when you are driving on a motorway sometimes you miss things that are going on in the surrounding world. A bypass takes you around things not through them. And when you see that motorway stretch out in front of you and you are still not sure of the destination, you want to get off. But sometimes there isn't a junction and sometimes there is but you are not sure that if you come off it you will find something better and then what if you can't get back on the motorway? Where do you go then? Are you stuck by the side of the road waiting for someone to come and tow you away?
And that, for me, is what being 30 is about. My 20's were, in the most part, awesome. For the first few years of the decade I completed university, enjoying life as a student. Then it was 18 months in Birmingham, living in a house with some of my best friends and enjoying the carefree life that comes with your first job and your first taste of disposable income. Five years of the decade was sent in Dubai, an experience that has shaped me (hopefully for the better). I left Dubai on my 29th birthday. And spent the next six months having probably the best six months of my life - skiing in Verbier, Casa Segura, Mexico, Costa Rica, then moving to London. And the last few months have been a little uncertain but my job with The Stripe Group has given me the opportunity to try my hand at a dream which may actually be possible - writing a novel. Sounds ridiculous considering this awful stream of consciousness that I might actually think I may be a writer. But thats what I though about all those other side roads I ignored. So now I am going down that side road and if it ends up a dead end then I hope I can find my way back.
30 - when you are old enough to realise that you should follow your dreams but too old to follow some of them.
You begin your twenties with dreams and end them in reality. We are programmed to believe that if we reach thirty and are not yet established, not yet someway down the career path or halfway up the career ladder, the strong likelihood is that we won't get to the end or climb to the top. Even though there are thousands of exceptions to this rule, it is still VERY hard not to be daunted by the big THREE O. Add to this the biological factors of women's ticking clocks and men's falling labidos (not a problem at the moment but will keep you updated) and the age is one to approach with trepidation.
- When I was five years old I was put in a taxi marked 'primary school'. In this taxi I passed through the villages of Times-Tables, Paintingwith Potatoes and Early Spellings. For the most part it was a happy taxi ride and all the way the taxi driver told me exactly where we were going and what to do.
-I then got placed on a bus for secondary school, journeying through various short tunnels of love (after a disturbing voyage through the darkness of Puberty), getting out at a number of sports fields and music classes which added potential routes to the map of my life I had spread out on my knee. But even at this stage, I ignored some of the paths, figuring that I should stick to the main road. I thought that side roads would only lead you to limit your options. I did not realise sometimes they can lead to greater destinations.
- At the age of 16 I was instructed to trim my choices and at 18 the options got even smaller. Destination unknown, I chose the ambiguous road marked Marketing Management. I knew that this road did not end in a single route - I knew it would open up some options although I didn't know if I'd want to take any of those options when I got to them.
- Now at this point things sped up and I was passing side roads on my left and right without really looking down them. It was full speed ahead and not now possible to circle backwards and try my luck down those paths I had earlier ignored. A life in sport had gone - I had not spent enough time on that path so did not have the skills or experience required. Music was a little more possible, although I would have to choose now or I would not have the necessary skills or experience either. If, at this point, this had been my dream, perhaps I would have chosen that route but it was not until a couple of years later when I realised the pure joy of standing on a stage playing songs you have written.
- It was now, having left University when I could have pursued a dream. Sport was long over but maybe music? But as I wasn't actually very good at any instrument, this would have required full dedication and, having come so far down the road and with a full concrete mass of education behind me, this would be a full hardy diversion. And probably be a cul-de-sac. And so I entered the motorway marked 'Career'.
- Not that it hasn't been fun, exciting, interesting, compelling. The eight or so years I have spent on the M-Career have been all of those things. It's just that when you are driving on a motorway sometimes you miss things that are going on in the surrounding world. A bypass takes you around things not through them. And when you see that motorway stretch out in front of you and you are still not sure of the destination, you want to get off. But sometimes there isn't a junction and sometimes there is but you are not sure that if you come off it you will find something better and then what if you can't get back on the motorway? Where do you go then? Are you stuck by the side of the road waiting for someone to come and tow you away?
And that, for me, is what being 30 is about. My 20's were, in the most part, awesome. For the first few years of the decade I completed university, enjoying life as a student. Then it was 18 months in Birmingham, living in a house with some of my best friends and enjoying the carefree life that comes with your first job and your first taste of disposable income. Five years of the decade was sent in Dubai, an experience that has shaped me (hopefully for the better). I left Dubai on my 29th birthday. And spent the next six months having probably the best six months of my life - skiing in Verbier, Casa Segura, Mexico, Costa Rica, then moving to London. And the last few months have been a little uncertain but my job with The Stripe Group has given me the opportunity to try my hand at a dream which may actually be possible - writing a novel. Sounds ridiculous considering this awful stream of consciousness that I might actually think I may be a writer. But thats what I though about all those other side roads I ignored. So now I am going down that side road and if it ends up a dead end then I hope I can find my way back.
30 - when you are old enough to realise that you should follow your dreams but too old to follow some of them.
The new blog - Disclaimer!
The first post for a lonnnnnng time. This was due to two reasons: firstly I wanted to leave the Casa Segura story up so I could refer people to it and they would find it easily, and secondly because I haven't had enough motivation to write a blog. However, for the past year I have been saying to myself that once I reached the top of the hill of life, past the flag marked '30', and started the long (hopefully) descent downhill, I would make every attempt to start a blog, primarily to aide my older self to remember these early 30 years.
The problem I have always had with diaries and now blogs is the overwhelming desire for a) structure and b) to start with a grand essay which gives background to how I have got to this point. I realise that both these desires have prevented me from just sitting down, logging on and typing so am trying to ignore them now.
So from now on I will endeavour to write something every day. Most of it will be stream of conciousness (like this is), not spellchecked (see 'concousness' earlier in this line) and probably not very interesting. But maybe there will be the occasional gem.
The problem I have always had with diaries and now blogs is the overwhelming desire for a) structure and b) to start with a grand essay which gives background to how I have got to this point. I realise that both these desires have prevented me from just sitting down, logging on and typing so am trying to ignore them now.
So from now on I will endeavour to write something every day. Most of it will be stream of conciousness (like this is), not spellchecked (see 'concousness' earlier in this line) and probably not very interesting. But maybe there will be the occasional gem.
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