My Thirties

On turning 40 next month

There is a lot to dislike about the self-help industry. To paraphrase George Carlin, if you’ve done something yourself, then that means you didn’t need help.

Over the past ten years, I have read several self-help books, and Jordan Peterson’s ‘Twelve Rules for Life’ is not one of the best. However, the advice “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today” is sound.

If I compare my level of fame and fortune to that of other authors, other comedians, other singer-songwriters, and other YouTubers, there is much to feel down about. But as my thirties come to an end, it is impossible not to notice that things are better than they were ten years ago, by seemingly every metric.

Health Habits

In 2014, I would have a beer every night except for special occasions. The following year I decided to restrict this to three times a week, and for the first time ever I started to exercise systemically, including running, swimming, and eventually weightlifting.

The downside to this was that when I drank, I really drank. Every year I would complete Dry January, Lent, or Sober October, to prove to myself I wasn’t dependent, but I often was. So, in 2023 I finally decided to go dry for the whole year.

My best physical accomplishments have all come during stretches of sobriety. In Spring 2017, while off booze for Lent, I completed a marathon ‘Forest Gump’ style, that is I went for a park run and didn’t stop. Nowadays I can bench above my own weight.

I just wish that an inferiority complex hadn’t stopped me from getting into gyms and fitness when much younger. By now I could have been built like Henry Rollins.  

Friendships

The biggest improvement between present-day me and thirty-year-old me is the calibre and quality of my friends. In 2013, the last year of my twenties, I was in two particularly toxic friendships with two guys who didn’t know each other.

One was the more old-fashioned kind of bad influence. He frequented strip clubs and sniffed cocaine, and he even managed to make those things seem dull. The other was the kind of small-minded pseudo-expert that every aspiring creative person encounters and needs to learn to ignore.

In the corporate world, one meets people who are fiercely intelligent, but channel their talents into more prosaic things, like wealth and social status. In the music and literary worlds, I find myself surrounded by talented oddballs on the fringes of society, my kinds of people.

When it comes to my musical friends, I don’t know much about their day jobs or their private lives, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they are a good influence.

MBA and Corporate Life

The first four years of my thirties were dominated by two all-consuming ambitions that were in direct conflict with each other.  I had a full-time job in a massive corporation, and at the same time was writing a book of short stories that I was determined to get published.

The job had a good salary and they put me in an apartment that wouldn’t have disgraced Richard Gere in ‘Pretty Woman’. I had a fancy title, but in reality I was the corporate equivalent of a handyman, there to speak when spoken to, never say boo to a goose, and fulfil tasks.

The way in which it conflicted with my literary ambitions was most apparent during protests. The headquarter building where I worked was a glass skyscraper, and a couple of times a year, some of the company’s factory workers would come to the outside to stage protests. As a writer, I desperately wanted to ask questions and delve into what was going on. But I chose to look the other way.

Since my corporate career was good but not really going anywhere, I decided to complete an MBA from 2017 to 2019. The thesis was on the subject of publishing, which helped bring various career strands together.

Although I haven’t had a 9-5 job since 2018, I am still of the opinion that (to not-quite quote Winston Churchill): “The 9-5 grind is the worst lifestyle, except for all the others.”

Music

When in the habit of having a beer every night, it is hard to improve one’s musical output. In 2015, when trying to fill sober evenings, I started to record classical guitar videos. I have been in this habit ever since.

The camera setup is basic, and in China, the audio suffered from having to either have the air conditioner on or be dripping with sweat within the first minute, but it was still better than spending the evenings in a paddling pool full of whiskey.

I have also had a decent chunk of teaching work in schools and in churches. Since my main goal in life is to be a net positive for society, this has been hugely rewarding.

Romance

Ten years ago, I was dating someone, and I pretty much assumed I would be married by now. I haven’t even come close. The definitive thing I have written on the subject is this:

Language

Upon turning thirty, my main professional activity was translating news articles. It paid a pittance and, although it put me on the map, there was no reason to believe I would ever earn a good living from it.

My conversational Chinese is probably a lot weaker than it was ten years ago, since I seldom get to use it, but my knowledge of the language is much deeper. Through teaching it professionally, and writing and recording two albums of Chinese songs, I have infinitely more to show for taking on this language, including this new YouTube channel, which is thriving in every sense except for the size of its audience:

My aim is to be literate in at least two more languages by the end of my forties. With Spanish I am well on the way and am planning to take up a new Asian language, though still haven’t decided which one.

Literary Achievements

Shortly after my thirtieth birthday, I was approached by one of the world’s most prestigious newspapers about the opportunity to write for them. It didn’t quite work out, and it was nobody’s fault, but journalism is by its very nature perishable, and any splash that it ever makes eventually fades.

In the past decade, I have probably spent more time writing prose than any other activity except for sleeping, and my body of published work is still paltry compared to any of my heroes, but while 40 is geriatric in musician’s years, many great authors hadn’t even started by this age.

Getting my short stories published and eventually self-publishing them as the collection ‘The Naked Wedding’ may be my proudest ever achievement, considering how much it took out of me.

The Kev

Of all the projects I have ever taken on, The Kev is the one that brings it all together: music, creative writing, languages, philosophy, and comedy. Ten years ago, I was at the start of a long hiatus away from music, but tentatively getting involved in Manchester’s open mic scene in the spring of 2019 has turned out to be one of the most fortunate decisions I have ever made. I wrote this love letter about it:

Conclusion

Ten years ago I was an underemployed drunk with no obvious career trajectory. The key thing I have learned since then is: “To improve upon the status quo, first one needs to understand the status quo.” That is why I dislike positive thinking so much. It values glib optimism over self-knowledge. 

A superior self-help book is ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. The only one that is particularly profound is Habit Number 5, ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’ One thing I’ve learned about people is that they don’t want to be impressed, they want to be impressive. And the less I focus on impressing others, the more comfortable I become in my own skin.