Today is my birthday – always an opportunity for reflection, but not especially this time because 32 is a not a major milestone like turning 60. For several weeks now, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned during the past 3.2 decades that really matters. Here’s a first pass:
1.) Don’t forget the sunscreen. Everyone looks good in 22-year-old skin. 32-year-old skin is a different matter. It's hard to undo sun damage and all the sun damage that you accumulated kicks in around your mid 20s. Unless you want to look all wrinkly and twice your age when you hit your mid 20s, use sunscreen on a regular basis, and especially on your face (facial moisturizer with SPF 15 FTW!).
2.) Life goes by faster than you think. As you get older, time seems to go by faster and faster because you get busier with more responsibilities. Also, as you get older and gain more life experience, time becomes less significant so 1 year of time will seem relatively less relevant to a 50 year old than it would to an 10 year old (i.e. 1/50 is less than 1/10). Because life goes by fast (and increasingly faster over time), we should live every day to the fullest and to gain as many new experiences as possible while we can. To put it in perspective, the average 30 year old American has roughly 17,000 days remaining before they die. You don’t have that many days to waste doing nothing.
3.) Switch to Fresh Wipes. Toilet paper is so 20th century. Fresh Wipes are superior to toilet paper in every conceivable way and once you experience that clean, fresh feeling after wiping, there is just no going back.
4.) Don’t drag out long-term relationships. 3-5 years is plenty of time to figure out if a relationship will lead towards marriage. Dragging out a relationship (for years) unnecessarily is bad because it wastes everyone’s time and it only makes it that much harder during the inevitable breakup. I’ve seen this happen to many friends and I was guilty of this offense myself but if you’ve been dating the same person for several years and it isn’t clearly leading towards marriage, you should both move on and see other people.
5.) Don’t spend your entire life in one place. I spent my childhood in Houston, my 20s in New York City and the past few years in San Francisco and this experience was invaluable towards my personal development because you gain new perspectives on life from living in different places. Every city/region has its pros and cons but you will never know them until you’ve lived somewhere else and have something to compare with.
6.) People who are upset don’t want advice. They want understanding. Gentlemen take heed; this is especially true with angry girlfriends and it will help you avoid the doghouse. Empathetic listening means you are taking the time to understand why someone is upset rather than waiting for your turn to talk.
7.) Take the CFA/CPA/GMAT/other standardized tests as early as possible. If there is the slightest possibility that you will ever sit for the CFA/CPA/GMAT exams, you should take them as early as possible in life because coming out of college, you will be in the best test taking shape of your life. Cramming in tons of material will only get harder as you get older and as you toil away in the working world. Plus, your GMAT scores will be good for 5 years so you’ll have ample time to decide whether you want to apply to grad school or not.
8.) Volunteer at least once a year. It’s always important to give back to the community but by volunteering at least once a year, you’ll be reminded of those who are less fortunate and you’ll be more appreciative of what you do have.
9.) Rain-X is awesome. I wish I started using Rain-X earlier in life because it pretty much renders windshield wipers obsolete. With a fresh coat of Rain-X on my windshields, I could do a 4-hour drive from Ithaca, NY to NYC in the pouring rain without ever having turned on my wipers once.
10.) It’s not what you know but who you know. Your personal network will be far more important to your career development than your GPA or how well you did in the toughest class in your major. At the end of the day, people want to work with others that they know and trust over someone that they don’t know but who may have gotten a perfect 4.0 GPA. There are plenty of people who got amazing grades but are a nightmare to work with.
11.) Don’t move to San Francisco without a girlfriend. The general consensus amongst single guys in the Bay Area is that the dating scene is terrible. I completely agree with that sentiment. San Jose to San Francisco is dominated by the tech industry, which heavily skews towards males. What makes SF especially imbalanced is because that’s where single guys in the Bay Area converge to hang out and party so it's not uncommon to see a lounge/club with a guy:girl ratio of 2:1 or 3:1. With the huge surplus in men, the chances of meeting a nice girl in the Bay Area are much lower compared to other cities.
Here’s a list of the most gender imbalanced cities (guess who ranks in the top 2 for more men?): http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/solocities_gap1.aspx
12.) All single women should move to San Francisco. I tell all my single female friends that don’t live in the Bay Area to move to San Francisco. San Francisco has tons of nice single guys who are well educated and have great careers. In fact, due to the gender imbalance, women will instantly become 33.3% (estimate based on empirical field research) more desirable simply by being in the Bay Area. I’m not saying all guys in the Bay Area are perfect but at the end of the day, having a good education and a good job should be on every woman’s checklist and it’s very easy to find and date single guys in SF that fulfill those categories. And yes, some women that there are no good guys in the Bay Area but frankly, I’ve heard women say that about any city.