30 Before 30

In honor of my upcoming 30th birthday, I’ve researched countless “things to do before 30” lists. And while there are plenty to choose from, I kept coming back to “Thirty Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She’s 30.”

The List was originally published in Glamour by columnist Pamela Redmond Satran in 1997. Over the next 30 weeks, I’ll be tackling each item on The List and reflecting about it here… publicly (gulp). I hope you enjoy and we can grow together. After all, turning older is a privilege denied to many.

By 30, you should have…
13. The belief you deserve it.

Reminder: Last week’s task was to have “something ridiculously expensive that you bought for yourself, just because you deserve it.”

So, I jumped the gun a little on this one, as I already spoke last week about learning to accept how deserving I am of something ridiculously expensive.

Taking that concept further, though, I read this week’s mini-essay with fervor. It’s a foreign concept to me… to believe you deserve something and not feel like a selfish prick for it.

But it’s also something that comes very naturally to most of my male peers. That’s not to say they’re selfish pricks at all; but it is to say there’s something innate for most men (in my experience) to believe they’re deserving of a nice life.

Without getting too political, there is — of course — the concern when someone believes they’re deserving to a point of taking without asking.

Rather, what I’m talking about is the ability for many men to go after what they want — a promotion, vacation, once-in-a-lifetime tickets, what have you — and reach out and get it. If it doesn’t pan out, it’s not because they’re not good enough.

The flip side, again from my experience, is that many women question their worth; we stutter and stall because we’re afraid of failure or embarrassment. Our self-worth is in question enough; why give anyone the power to make us feel like even less?

I’ve experienced this myself, particularly when I questioned what the hell I was thinking in moving across the country twice. I remember, specifically, calling my mom on the first night in my barren San Francisco apartment. I cried and asked why she “let me” make the move from Manhattan.

What I had to work through, with lots of help from my mom and other dear loved ones, was that I deserved to take this chance on myself. If I fell flat on my face and decided I didn’t like SF (as I had determined with NYC), that didn’t make me a failure. The only failure would be in not taking the chance.

If I looked back at 40 (or 30!), she reminded me, I’d kick myself if I hadn’t at least tried.

Am I successful here? That’s all relative. I’m not a bitcoin billionaire (or a startup septillionaire 😉 ), but I’ve made a life I’m proud of here and continue to take chances on myself often. I try new things, have difficult conversations, publish this blog for goodness sake!, and I’ve come out the other side just fine.

After all, falling on my face is just another of life’s lessons, which surely won’t stop at 30. It only means I took the steps to put myself out there and try to fly. And that’s something I think we all deserve.