when you hit the thirties ...

When you start getting those sweet pains in your joints long after the workout is over, when a little out of routine food causes acidity, constipation or bloating, when one night-out party creates a week long sleep backlog, when you start waking up with a strange back pain, when you start wondering when you will have enough money in your bank account and when every single girl starts looking marriageable (if you have still not given up), know that you have hit the thirties. Welcome to the crossroad of life. It takes a man to enter 30 and smile about it.

Its a funny place to be at. A classic test of how you see life, half empty or half full. Truly, nowhere else in your life this "half-half" outlook is more relevant. Most of us don't mull over it for long and probably should not. Life goes on but I think it's a good time to take a close hard look at, even for a few fleeting seconds, how our last 30 years have been and how we would like to see ourselves in the next 30 years. I just crossed 30 and I am not sure how others have taken this but I can say for myself that its different. 30th birthday does put things in perspective and begs you to use tangible yardsticks to define yourself as an individual. In a way, abstract measurements like love, energy, youth, freedom and friendship take a whole new meaning. They are not everything anymore. There's more. Career, bank balance, salary raise, cars, house(s), family (wife, kids and parents). Dreams and aspirations of the twenties demand a re-look.

Lucky ones amongst us will still keep following our own dreams besides raising a family we love. But, some of us will have to make adjustments or even compromises with our original dreams. Take up jobs for paycheck sake. Thirty is the time to ask yourselves these hard questions. How much of your original dream stays in the new scheme of things? Have you spent the youthful twenties wisely to earn a larger share or do you see yourself as a late bloomer and willing to grind it out some more or are you ready to make the peace? Bravo to those who are still living their dreams after 30. To those who had to take a more common road, I hope and I wish that they have lots of love in their life. Nothing can beat it.

If I was cooler than what what I am, I would have probably taken a completely different approach - "Chill dude, didn't you know that 30's was the new 20's". I would have loved to think that talking about seriousness of turning 30 is ridiculous, it was like making a mountain out of a molehill. But then I would not be who I am. I guess, all we 30 somethings can still take solace in the oft repeated axiom "Life begins at 40". Must be some truth in it. Billions have gone there before us. And I wonder how we will feel when we turn 60 ... Boy O Boy, that would be something ...

So long,
Anand Srivastava
Tues. 3rd Nov, 09