Things I Wish I Knew Before Turning 30 (Part 1)

In September, I’ll be permanently saying goodbye to my 20s. As I type this, I’m trying to think of one word or a staccato to best describe how the past 10 years of my life was like, but sometimes, words fail us when it counts most, don't they?

Let’s just say my 20s was the decade that shaped me into the woman and the adult that I am today. It was an age of uncertainty, discovery, fun & adventure, goodbyes & fresh starts — a time of dreaming, coming to terms with reality, and starting over.

If I had to summarize it, my 20s was my learning phase into proper adulthood.I think I got some things right, but a lot of it I could’ve done better if I had a mentor figure or had someone influential in my life who taught me these things.

I wish I started investing in my early 20s.

If I had understood the power of time and the concept of compounding earlier in my life, I would have done my absolute best to start investing in stocks and index funds after getting my first full-time job at 20. (More blogs to come soon on this topic with more details, but for now, this is what I’m leaving you with: start investing TODAY! You’ll thank yourself later.)

This is one of my biggest regrets today. If I had just done my research, I could’ve started my investment journey in 2022 at 25 when I first heard of platforms like COL Financial, Gstocks on Gcash, REITS, etc. If you’re not currently investing in anything yet, think carefully about this: The average growth of the S&P 500, the 500 largest companies in the US stock market, is roughly 10% EVERY YEAR. If you have P100,000 or $1,000 sitting in a traditional bank, you’re losing about 3-4% of its value to inflation. Plus, traditional banks, especially here in the Philippines, could NEVER offer a 5% annual interest rate, much less 10%. There are two lessons here: Invest in index funds as early as you can. And make your money work for you.

If you’re a total beginner in investing, try reading these books for inspo: Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Psychology of Money. I also like to listen to educational podcasts like Diaries of a CEO and Mel Robbins Podcast.

I wish I hadn’t impulsively invested into investment schemes I didn’t understand.

This is my most costly mistake: I lost P60,000 ( $1,000 when converted to today’s money) at 23 or 24, when I joined Axie Infinity at its peak in the Philippines. I had a close friend who got in early in the game and started earning some pretty decent amount from Axie’s play-to-earn model that I was enticed by the idea of having an attractive passive income too. If my friend could do it, surely I could too, right? But unlike my friend, I didn’t know anything about video games. I didn’t even understand how people could earn money from this.

All I knew was I trusted my friend and my friend trusted this platform, so why not? To cut the story short: I wasn’t able to earn anything from it until such time Axie was no longer profitable. I joined at a bad time, right when it was about to go downhill, and I didn’t know a way to save my money. I never told my family how this investment went (They’d be furious!). I don’t blame my friend either — she didn’t force me or invite me to join. It was entirely on me, and my FOMO on earning some attractive money on the side. I learned the expensive way, so now I’m much more cautious of where I put my money (into index funds and carefully picked stocks).

I wish I hadn't been too harsh on myself.

Growing up in a humble Asian household, I matured early. I was consistently at the top of my class, held the highest leadership positions in school, and led too many group projects than I was happy to accommodate. I thought I always had to do more, to be more — I felt guilty for falling short of my own standards. I was my worst critic. I thought I always had to be working hard. I felt guilty for resting.

I wish I said “no” more often.

I wish younger me was braver and didn’t give too much f**k (pardon my language!) about pleasing other people and meeting their expectations. I was too afraid to let them down, too terrified that turning their requests down would cause some friction and disrupt the “peace” (The Libra in me was too afraid to ruin the harmony!) I had mistaken saying yes for being dependable. I’m not trying to play victim, but in hindsight, by always making myself available and saying yes to things even at my own expense and inconvenience, it was I who had taught some people how to take me and my efforts for granted.

Hence, the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” is pretty high on my TBR list, hah!

I wish I had learned to love my body a bit more.

I wish I didn't feel too insecure about the light brown color of my skin, the roundness of my nose, the shape of my face, and my wavy, textured hair. In my teens up to my early 20s, I spent so much time in the mirror trying to figure out what was wrong with my face and body. I hated how these features made me feel so… average, so plain, so Filipino.

But over the years, after much deep reflection and surrounded by the right people, these features didn’t make me feel any less attractive anymore. I have grown to love and appreciate them, especially after moving to the UK at 25 — I love how my skin, my nose, my eyes, my hair made me look and feel Filipina and Asian. They made me me. It’s still a challenge to style my wavy hair every day, but I’m enjoying it more and taking care of it more gently now. Throughout high school and college, I used to always permanently straighten my hair (that’s how insecure I felt about it!), but I’m proud to say that it’s been rebond-free for over 7 years now!

I wish I hadn’t stop writing poems on Instagram for a year.

I was so caught up in finding a job and working in the UK (at some point I had a full-time and a part-time job) that I had put aside my passion project, i.e., writing poetry and posting it online.

Fun fact: I have self-published two poetry books under the pen name Juana Garcia, a journey that started in the pandemic. I was able to grow my following up to 13K through consistency, until juggling my two jobs, trying to keep a social life, and posting online started to feel too much. I got sidetracked. I lost focus. BUT — I’ve not given up on it yet. Slowly, I’m trying to revive it, posting at least once a week and trying my best to engage with the community without burning myself out.

I wish I hadn't felt too guilty about outgrowing friends from childhood and high school.

This used to torment me a lot, how I’d feel like I was slowly betraying the friends who I grew up into adolescence with. I would try so hard to keep the connection alive despite the growing distance between me and my friends, not just physically but also emotionally.

There was a point where I felt jealous that their new friends knew so much more about what was happening in my friends’ lives than I did. Somebody else had taken my place in their lives, and the same was true for me. I would often wonder if they felt it as deeply as I did about the change. I wonder if the drifting apart also caused a little precious tear in their young hearts as it did to mine. I was that friend from a tiny little town who kept on moving from one city to another, and sometimes I would find myself thinking what would it have been like if I hadn’t left. Would we remain as close as we were? Have I lost them because I traded what was familiar with the exciting, almost intoxicating promise of what lies ahead thousands of miles away?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret moving from Pangasinan to Baguio, to Manila, to Leeds, to Liverpool. These life experiences are what shaped the person that I am today. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. But the younger me who used to miss them quite a lot would often wonder about the past. If I had to sum this up to my 20s version: People come and go. You’ll find friends who will go with you through every stage of your journey, but you can’t possess them. Instead, cherish them. Look back on what you had shared with nothing but fondness and a grateful heart.

I wish I had carried on learning another musical instrument after I gave up learning guitar.

Me and my close friend, Ana, who I met in my first corporate job at 21 (same friend who took that lovely photograph of the Pasig Esplanade), decided to get serious about learning guitar, so we each bought one. We wandered into SM Megamall in Mandaluyong, walked into an instrument shop, and came out carrying our shiny new guitars in their black bags strapped onto our little backs. It was one of those silly, exhilarating moments you share with your girl friends, “If you do it, I’ll do it too” kinda thing. I remember how we were so thrilled at the thought of finally being one or two steps closer to realizing one of our lifelong dreams! It makes me smile even just typing it now.

Well, this is really anticlimactic, but fast forward to 8 years later, and here I am, still can’t play a single damn song on the guitar. I don’t even have that guitar anymore. I gave it away to one of my cousins. I think I came as far as learning most of the basic chords, but quickly realized it wasn’t for me. I didn’t like how it pained my fingertips every time I strummed the strings, I was also too busy with work at the time, and I was getting more and more frustrated at my slow progress that seeing the guitar just lying there untouched gathering dust made my frustration even worse, so I decided to close that chapter and move on. I still haven’t given up on my dream of learning one musical instrument before I die though! Maybe piano? But before I impulsively dive into another musical endeavor, I want to sort some things out first in my life. I don’t want to rush into it this time and risk hating piano as well.

I wish I hadn’t missed learning Nihongo for 3 consecutive nights during our family trip to Turkey then I wouldn’t have lost my months-long streak.

This is a problem that plagues a lot of young people, not just me: The desire to do so many things, be so many things that ironically, we end up doing nothing. I am guilty of that. But, back to my Nihongo experience. I was having a great streak learning Japanese every night after coming home from work at the University of Liverpool (This was when I was in the UK), dedicating at least 30 minutes to 1.5 hours every day studying Japanese. I had a daily goal to learn 35 new Japanese words every day, and I was pretty satisfied with how my progress was going until we went on a family trip to Turkey, and I missed one night. Then another. Then another. And another. Even after the trip, I tried to get back to my usual rhythm, but to no avail! What I had done was a grave error when trying to build a routine, never miss two consecutive days. Even if you can’t put in the same amount or level of effort as you usually do, the crucial part is to show up. Every single day. Every little progress makes a massive difference with the power of compounding.

If you’re trying to sort out your habits or build new ones, a book I would highly recommend is: Atomic Habits by James Clear.

I wish I was gentler and more patient with my parents.

In my 20s, all I wanted was to go after my dreams and goals as a young professional making her entry into the adult workforce. I was in my adulting phase, and with it came one problem to tackle after another. There was the stress of daily, tedious office work, the struggles of saving, the pressure to achieve the goals I set out for myself at 25, and the ensuing disappointment at myself for not having realized any of it, i.e., owning a house or a car after working in Manila. Then pandemic came which practically put our lives to a seeming halt for almost 2 years. Then my life went to a completely different track when I moved to Leeds at 25 as a master’s student. I was starting all over again.

Through all of this, I was caught up in my own struggles one too many times that I felt I hadn’t given much of my time, thought, and presence to my family, especially my parents who were already in their late 50s at the time. They’re in their 60s now. These days, I try to be gentler in how I speak and treat them. When they can’t follow an instruction on their phones that I’ve told them about multiple times already, we make fun of it and just laugh it off. I’m learning to be more patient. I’ve realized that my parents aren’t perfect, that they don’t have all the answers, that they were once just kids like us who did their best to figure out how to raise three children amidst poverty. In my late 20s, when we were able to afford to travel as a family, I realized that it’s my parents’ first time living too.

Writer’s note: I originally planned this to be “30 Things I Wish I Learned Before Turning 30”, but I didn’t expect it to be this long just after the 10th item on my list! I got carried away (even digressed at several points), but I felt good writing something like this again after a while. I missed the feeling of just sitting down and typing on my laptop in the middle of the night when everything is quiet. It took me a week to finish this article because your girl is busting her ass off at work and also running errands for her family on the side, but I’m quite happy about what I’ve put together so far. It’s like rekindling your old passion, you know? It feels oddly satisfying and familiar.

I’m positive there will be a part two!

What about you? What were your biggest realizations in your 20s? Or if you’re in your 20s reading this, hope you find any of these useful. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section or by email. I’d be happy to read them. :)

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