30 Under Nobody: Reaching A Milestone Age + Not Accomplishing What You Thought You Would
A few weeks ago I was scrolling on Linked In and I learned that one of my former classmates from college made it onto Forbes 30 Under 30 List for 2021.
While I truly was happy for her and all of the well-deserved congratulatory posts she was receiving in the moment, I also have to say that there was a small twinge of emotional tenderness I was experiencing for myself.
I knew it wasn’t jealousy or envy, but it was something.
And the longer I allowed myself to sit honestly with my emotions, I more I was able to decipher.
It was a like a sadness mixed with longing with a dash of frustration because now at 29 years only, I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that I was aging out of achieving one of my big life-goals—being named a 30 Under 30.
So, look… I know that I shouldn’t let not achieving this title dictate my sense of value as a person in the world. I am still a strong, powerful woman who has achieved so much for my age.
I even know cognitively that awards like this can be problematic because all they do is
Reinforce the idea that young people should be sacrificing their youth to become capitalistic workhorses at like age 8 and…
Make people feel like they have nothing to live for by age 30.
And yet, even being aware of allllllll of that, the overly-ambitious, perfectionist side of me is still moping at the idea that achieving this goal will not be my reality.
With the last year of my twenties on the horizon, I truly can’t believe how quickly the last decade of my life went by. I remember being told as a teen that the older you get the faster each year of your life feels, and I can truly vouch for that sentiment.
It’s crazy to see pictures of classmates of mine with young children and families because technically we’re at the age where we can totally do that without getting side eye.
But real talk, I can honestly still vividly remember being a freshman in high school and daydreaming about the type of person that I would “grow up” to be. How I was facing my twenties with so much hunger and ambition—determined to make something of myself in the entertainment industry. And for the early half of my twenties, it really seemed like I was on track to make a big name for myself.
After landing a dream internship within BuzzFeed’s video department and building a name for myself, both as a personality, a spoken word poet and a video producer, I for sure thought that achieving something like 30 Under 30 was well within my grasp. Lord, knows I can’t tell you how many people in my inner circle have achieved it.
But then I don’t know… It just didn’t materialize.
I have a close friend who I met while working together at BuzzFeed who would joke about how I was like some kind of mistress to BuzzFeed because everyone loved to tell me how impactful my videos were or how great my work was, but no one was ever willing to actually lift me up (like providing me with adequate resources or nominating me for awards or anything).
And again, awards don’t really mater in the grad scheme of things. There are plenty of extremely successful people in the world who never got these awards that I was obsessed with in my twenties. And yet, I also feel like some of my sadness/frustration at looking at the award that will never be is also rooted in the fact that I felt like I gave my all when I worked at BuzzFeed and yet still always found myself coming up short.
I legit remember asking a manager for a raise after I just had one video hit over a million views in 10 hours and then another video that was 14 min long get over 30 million watch time minutes in like a few days and you know what the manager said to me…
They said that because I only turned in two out of the four videos they wanted me to produce that month that I wasn’t really in good standing to ask for a raise.
After that conversation I began to plot my exit (obviously).
But I would say after the first year or so of leaving, I had days where I struggled with my decision to leave. Not because I still wanted to be there, but because I felt like I left without getting my due.
I put so much heart and mental bandwidth into that job and my work, and yet when I left at 26, I felt like I had nothing real to show for it. Yes, I had followers. Yes, people knew my face. But that stuff can truly only get you so far, and it’s not really why I got into my work in the first place.
I’ve always just wanted to make good work; you know the type of work that you could return to year after year because the core of what the work is about is timeless.
I pride myself on always putting forward my best work. But after being in therapy for the last three years, I’ve also discovered that part of this “pride” that I have stems from me being a people pleaser.
It’s not so much that I care about what people think of me. It’s more so that I care about proving myself to other people; like part of the reason why I work so hard to be the best at what I do is because there’s also a part of me that needs the people around me to buy into, too. And when they don’t, it just causes me to push myself harder and harder until I’m mentally broken.
I didn’t realize how much power I was giving away to my job or my bosses to determine whether or not I was worth fighting for. I always felt like if I was worth it, then they would realize it and treat me accordingly.
But if there’s anything I’ve learned having been that type of environment it’s that you have to fight to get people to recognize your value. You have to be your loudest advocate. Because no one is going to care about you getting what you deserve more than you.
So, while I settle into being a 30 Under Nobody (and yes, I know I’m not a nobody, but it had the ring I was looking for), I have also come to realize that I’m walking away from my twenties with many gifts. They may not be the type of gifts that get me written up on Forbes, but I’m settling into the idea that maybe this didn’t happen for me because the universe wants me to prove to others that you can still create mega wild success for yourself after 30.
Maybe I’m meant to remind people (as well as myself) that our age is literally just a number and that our weird cultural obsession with youth and success is just that—hella weird.
So, if you are approaching a milestone age as I am, and find yourself looking back at all that you weren’t able to accomplish over the last few years then know that 1. You are not alone and
2. That I still believe that the best is yet to come.
When I find myself in these tender emotional spots, I love to think about what good could come out of me not getting what I wanted and I’d love to pass that same activity onto you.
What is one benefit that you can see out of not achieving what you hoped you’d have by now? How can you turn not having that thing into a positive?
Please feel free to share with me in the comments below!