There's a current trend called 'By age 35' due to some article published by this finance website called Fidelity. Not that I care so much about this trend, it just happened to have triggered me by age 35. Perhaps it is just an asinine and insensitive attempt to wake my fellow 35s to the reality of being old and broke. Here's the thing, people are just too obsessed with saving for the retirement, the future and the fear of being hungry and homeless someday.
The article says that I should have saved 2x my annual salary by age 35. Or maybe what it really means is that my debt should be 2x my annual salary due to interests. Though there's really nothing wrong with saving for retirement, I've just seen people who are too worried about their future tend to become uptight and unhappy. Too much of this whole retirement craze can be bad for the mental health. Just look at the present-focused people, they might not have the best living condition but they are happy as the Hindu Cows.
There must be a balance between this whole work for the retirement and live your life now. Good thing that some people don't fall for unrealistic financial advice from investment firms. Don't worry, you can still enjoy the 'By age 35' memes even if you have nothing saved for retirement.
And to celebrate 35, here's my own set of'By age 35'.
By age 35, you should have 2-3 real friends who know your shit and 800 social media friends who can easily unfriend you just because you call out their politics and express your opinion about their government propaganda.
By age 35, you should have realized that you love your cat more than people.
By age 35, you should have the same music playlist from the 90s decade and maybe it's time to move on?
By age 35, you should have traveled to 18 countries.
By age 35, you should not have saved enough for retirement because you chose to see the world instead.
By age 35, you should have noticed how hard it is to maintain a consistent waistline.
By age 35, you should have lost a dozen of cellphones.
By age 35, you should be aware that PMS sucks and that you can be a monster.
By age 35, you should not go back to your corporate job, anyway, it is hard to get a job now because of your age and because it is hard to explain the gaps in your resume or working experiences.
By age 35, you should be happy to know that your college crush is still single yet you also wonder why.
By age 35, you should be happy to know that you are still single.
By age 35, you should absolutely not care about what other people think.
By age 35, you should be talking to yourself, laughing alone and thinking a lot, or in short, you are crazier now.
By age 35, you should have some tiny crypto savings which you could easily convert to cash in case of emergency.
By age 35, you should have some personal project, purpose or business idea because it sucks to think of what else to do in life.
By age 35, you should appreciate that living alone is the best thing in the world.
By age 35, you should know that it's even harder to get along because by now you should be wise enough to see through people's bs.
By age 35, you should be constantly moving around because you are still homeless.
By age 35, you should be torn between settling down and traveling around.
By age 35, you should have bought too many books that you can't even find some time to read them.
By age 35, you should be impatient, impulsive and heartless.
By age 35, you should be happy working on your own, and enjoying the routine you have designed for yourself.
By age 35, you should be tired as F.
By age 35, you should only have sneakers, flipflops and surf siders because they are comfortable and you are tired.
By age 35, you should not have listened to those who told you what you should have accomplished by age 35.
By age 35, all you need to be is to be yourself.