31

Thirty Fun: Live, Laugh, Love

At first blush, turning 31 seems like an insignificant birthday. Indeed, there is extent to which 31 feels like 30 round two. I’m still barely into my 30s, with adequate psychological buffer to the mid-30s. Turning 30 was monumental, yet turning 31 just seems like formality. But I actually feel this will be a very important age. First, what has changed.

I noticed that at 30 I finally started to feel secure and settled into myself, perhaps for the first time since youthful innocence. My greatest conscious endeavor of personal growth as a 30 year old was to develop a good relationship with myself. For so much of my life, I looked externally for validation and support. That is wonderful to have if you can have it, but I now believe that my life is best lived if I can give myself all of the love and nurturing that I need and want. That comes not from a place of negativity or cynicism that world cannot be loving and nurturing, but rather as a product of the simple observation that I am best suited to love, nurture, and support others when my cup is default full. This is a lesson learned, in slightly different ways, from my paternal grandfather, father, and the father of one the best friends I ever had.

My paternal grandfather has been by every account, including my own interactions with him, a consistently happy and confident man. No matter his condition, he is optimistic and sees the glass as completely full even when it may appear to others nearly empty — not half full; completely full. My grandfather is still a role my model to my father, who as he ages seems more and more like his own father.

I was speaking to my dad this week and he was speaking about the idea of being present, referencing a talk a priest gave at a meditation he recently attended. As a former resident of San Francisco, the idea of “presence” is far from novel, but it struck a deeper chord coming from the wisdom of my own family, long steeped in Buddhist spirituality. In San Francisco, people spoke of presence using the right words, but with an energy that felt like yet another commodified means to an end. Basically, it seemed most San Francisco residents were being “present” to achieve or attain X. It never felt authentic to me. When father spoke of presence, it felt real, and organic. As an example of presence, he spoke of passing time playing Sudoku.

As my teacher Lawrence is in his happy place sitting in a hot tub, my dad is in his happy place playing Sudoku. A student of calculus learns that any continuous function can be thought of as the sum of infinitesimally small slices. Too often we optimize for our maxima rather than the area under the curve, forgetting that life is a just a series of moments. It is too easy to live a life of self-imposed if unconscious drudgery, working towards anticipated moments of salvation. At 31, I realize those moments are hardly worth anything, but this moment, these moments of presence, are worth everything. I’m now seeing that this idea is really just a grown up version of an idea that has been long instilled in me.

I have cited many times in writing that the father of my best friend growing up taught me, prior to his sudden and premature passing, to always have fun. That once seemed radical, but now seems obvious, with an adjustment. I have come to see that having “fun” all the time is not ideal, and one might even say that being “happy” all the time is not ideal, as both of states can easily yield excess and crashes, but being “present” all the time, living in the moment, for the moment, is more sustainable. In general I now believe that fun and happiness should be the aim, with the caveat that moderation is key is maximizing the area under curve, so to speak. I feel like I just used far too many words to say that I feel like I’m growing up, a little bit. That’s not to say there aren’t any slip-ups.

Just a week or two ago I almost got myself in trouble in far too many ways, through sheer and utter immaturity and stupidity. I’m not going to go into any details beyond saying that in one context a police officer, and in another context some very patient humans, all threw me a bone when they could have easily thrown me under the bus. I’d like to think that I learned my lesson. I think I learned a lesson. But I know I will make more mistakes.

I am human, I am fallible. I always try to be better, but know I’ll never be perfect. I’m now far less bothered by the mistakes. Whether I scratch my car, or lose my phone, or screw up a business deal, or accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, I am now kinder and more forgiving to myself. To me, that feels like 31. A common theme in the past that only accelerated at 30 is that I am a very fortunate 31 year old.

At 30, I had perhaps the most fun and successful year of my life. I dare not make any predictions about the future, but I am hopeful that 31 will be even better. I attribute more than before to my own efforts and talents, but even more to my heart, and the most to everyone else and the universe. I am further than I have ever been from wanting to live in a castle in the sky. Life to me is now about humans, their connections and experiences. I care less about money now than I ever have, though that’s easy to say when I have more than I’ve ever had. More importantly, something inside of me has shifted, deprecating the insecure ego that wants more for the self, and yielding to the secure ego that finds greater satisfaction in others. I make no attempt to hide my sins; past, present, and future. But I also now know myself well enough to say that I really do care about people. I am less fearful of my own selfishness knowing that when it arises it is a defense mechanism and what lays beneath is a human who has much to give to others. It was hard to get to this point.

I spent a lot of 30 exploring my own past trauma. There is so much about myself that I have long known but repressed or ignored. I would tell others about what was hard in my life with no memory of ever sharing, as I learned this year when I went back to old friends with vulnerable shares about recent insights, only to hear back that they mostly knew all of this, because I’d speak on such subjects so often that they were explicit to everyone but myself.

I’m intentionally avoiding the details here, as they remain sensitive and involve people who are still alive, but the situation is a bit like a person who is really insecure about something specific that is very obvious to everyone else, but has no conscious awareness of it, and is surprised when they realize that they pursuing an aim not because it was true to them, but in response to some trauma and a resulting felt sense of “not-enoughness,” or inadequacy. Suffice to say, I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear this reflected back to me. A general theme at 30 was that I was less much surprised in many facets of life. Much in life finally started to click at 30.

My fortunes did not come without their curses, but I am learning to appreciate and see the gifts, or “roses,” in it all. It seems sad but true that those who suffered have greater empathy for it. That’s not to say that anyone ought to suffer, but just to observe that is indeed a part of the human condition, and that I am better for all that has been hard. At 30, I demonstrated to myself that I have the capacity to be the light for others. At 31, I hope to exercise that ability, not as a burden or obligation, but because that’s what feels good to do.

At 30, I was intent on simplifying my life, and I did that to a great extent. My life became easier and happier. At 31, I feel like I’ve passed an inflection point, and am reintroducing complexity. I will likely have more anxiety and stress in my life, which I at once both fear and embrace. The human experience is dynamic. For a long time it seemed like simplicity was the answer.

Now, hair thinning a bit but with the most magnificent locks I’ve ever had, I am standing tall and leaning in. I recognize that no matter the physical changes that will inevitably come, I will never be less beautiful than I am at this moment. I’m not changing my strategy, but attitude is bolder and more proactive. So perhaps my first instinct on 31 wasn’t far off the mark.

I do think 31 will be 30 round two, but not in a dull way. 30 was good, and I will try my hardest to make 31 even better, knowing that it doesn’t matter much if I succeed. I’m hoping I will look back at this age to see that I had fun, was happy, and was present; that I lived, laughed, and loved.