“You know the problem with grads? It’s their sense of bloody entitlement. It’s like because they've graduated, or have gone through a ‘competitive grad scheme’ they are now obligated only to do the interesting bits of a job; get promoted without demonstrating any competence; and have things handed to them rather than going and getting them for themselves. When I started out, I knew I’d have to put in a good few years of silly hours to set me up for the rest of my career and I was more than happy to do so”
And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the exact moment when I got old and bitter. I performed the holy trinity of bitter old man - answering my own rhetorical question, wheeling out the tried and tested “kids these days don’t know how lucky they are” and topping it off with a bit of “in my day we knew the value of toil”.
The thing is I actually said that quite a few months ago - during the happy, carefree days of my (albeit very late) 20s. I got old way before I hit 30.
I always thought my boss had put it well at a Christmas party when he said “It’s strange, I really don’t feel as old now as I thought people my age were when I was younger”. His words gave me hope that (much like when I found out that a previous boss had been arrested, in his mid 40s, for pulling a wheelie on his motorbike whilst passing a police station) that you never really grow up.
But now I'm older and wiser, I've reflected on this a bit and I'm not sure I fully agree with it.
Yes, I’ll still gaily leap from Swiss dams with reckless abandon or sink a VK blue strawpedo in a room of 300 work colleagues in a way that would shock 16 year old me’s idea of what a 30 year old me should be doing. But sometimes - just sometimes mind you – I will catch myself either calculating the ROI on a planned house extension; questioning whether the 3.0L engine really was a better choice than the more fuel efficient equivalent; or maybe even thinking that maybe going on a cruise wouldn’t be as similar to repeatedly jabbing myself in the eye with a fork as I had once thought.
It’s in these moments that I’m exactly as old as I thought I’d be, but, amazingly, it’s in these moments that I realise the opportunities that getting older brings.
You see, as a great philosopher (Spidey) didn't quite once say, “with great responsibility comes great power”. Take the house extension example. Yes, moving to a 1930s semi in a commuter suburb up North (outside the M25) was a very sensible and middle age thing to do, as was the decision to get somewhere smaller and extend to add value. However, for every sensible “kitchen diner” and “loft conversion” decision, I get the power to balance it with a “big ass cinema room” or “wall of whisky”.
For me, all that the responsibilities of getting old seem to do is present new and ingenious opportunities to act childishly. Because of this, getting older is bloody brilliant.
So here I am, 2 months into my 30s and almost 21 months since I set out to take on 30 hare-brained challenges and I'm afraid I've got a bit of a confession to make:
I didn't manage to do all 30. I'm sorry
As it stands to today, I can claim (dubiously) to have completed 20 of the 30 challenges. That’s 66.66667% and, if it were a degree, it would net me a solid 2:1.
But let’s for a brief moment forget the tiny little detail that I failed miserably to achieve my goal. In the last 21 months I have dived off a high diving board; joined a flashmob; attempted the 3 peaks; learnt to play the guitar and sing along; did some motocross; tangoed with all the ladies; sampled Heston’s finest; survived the zombie apocalypse; slept on a bed of ice; tutored a girl to achieving a worse result in a re-take of her A-Level Economics (the system is broken); ran a marathon; wore my pink suit in public; toured the distilleries of Scotland; partaken in and instigated a 30 Jagerbomb round; plunged 220m dressed as James Bond; drove a convertible up the West Coast of the USA; completed 4 weeks of the 5:2 diet immediately following the USA; had more than 300 people at my birthday (well technically, "work Christmas on the day of my Birthday") party; attended wine school (after turning 30); and definitely did not light a cigar with a £20 note as that would be a criminal offence (manipulating the money supply apparently).
Add to that the minor events of getting married; having the most awesome safari-beach honeymoon imaginable; surviving my mankini-clad-German-festival stag; finally selling my flat; buying a house; and all the other awesome “normal” things that have happened over the past 21 months and what you have is a 2 year period that would rival even the halcyon days of the 2nd year of uni.
So what if I didn’t give blood, get a six-pack (although I felt pretty good on my wedding day) or do an Olympic triathlon (damn you flat tyre!)?
If all it took was the pressure of growing up to motivate me to be more childish - and this ended up with me having 2 of the best years of my life - then bring on 40 by 40.
Watch this space...
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