31st Birthday Reflection

Get Up and Run…31 — As the Bingo call goes.

Birthdays provide us with an opportunity for self-reflection, a time to ponder life choices and plan for the future.

At 31, I don't own a house nor have a bucket load of savings with a wife and kids.

This may seem odd against the grain of expectations from society. Yet, upon the first reflection, your immediate thought may have been what a failure. This guy must be unhappy.

There are undoubtedly many other similar 31-year-olds, even those in their 40s, or 50s, who wonder if this lifestyle suits the world's needs.

I began to think on my Birthday, when did we, as a society, as a group of humans living on this planet, decide that we must go to school, get a career, get married, buy a house, and have kids before our 30s.

I'm now an oddball at the ripe old age of 31 for not following this beautifully crafted pathway that'll bring happiness and joy until we die… Yet, all my friends, schoolmates, and University study group members have achieved at least one of these things.

Did our ancestors expect this from their youth? Did the Greeks, Romans, Vikings, or Aliens? It begs the question of when did this shift happen. There must be a time when unmarried people without kids and a house in their 30s were thrown out of the community. An embarrassment to the family. A failure of a life.

I've never had urgent plans to follow these steps. I've met, worked with and even dated people who said with stern eyes, "I want to get married by 22, have a house by 25 and two kids by 27". The number of Birthday candles soon reached these milestones, and I'll watch on as the breath gets lighter and lighter as the years go on. To almost a level of a light gust of wind on a bleak winter's day, blowing out a symbol of hope and passion.

I've also seen many follow through with their plans. The plan for two kids merged into three or four before the 30th celebrations. Friends have remortgaged numerous occasions, sold, moved, upgraded and downgraded whilst planning the perfect wedding. An event painted as a young princess of 100s of guests smiling in a perfectly decorated venue with the perfect partner awaiting their slow walk down the aisle.

To those who have 'completed' these goals, life steps, and society's expectations, I sometimes view in envy — as I sit in a quiet rental with no memories of childbirth or…