As the title says, what’s one tidbit of advice or life hack, big or small, that every 32+ year old man should know (I’m 32). In just trying to navigate life the best way I can and figure things out and could use some wisdom from my peers. Cheers, y’all.
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Keep your hair, car, room, and lawn clean and you’ll feel less overwhelmed regardless of anything else going on – they are just passive “I’ve got this shit today” mood boosts
Start working out. It will help your posture, mental well being, physical health, and more. Do it before you start to feel old in the next year or two.
Take care of dental health. Workout. Eat well. Spend on things that will improve your quality of life. Keep surroundings cleans, this will help provide mental clarity.
How to recognize and express your feelings in a clear, productive way. It probably doesn’t come naturally. I have started learning this skillset quite late in life, and have had chaotic relationships because of it.
Get gas on your way home. Not first thing in the morning.
Drop the ego.
Invest as much as you possibly can in bettering your health now and accept when you need to ask for help.
This can mean checking out that lingering medical concern, even if mild. Paying for fitness or personal training. Doing that meal plan kit to eat healthier. Try mental health services and therapy, if not feeling your best.
You’ll find that you will regret not doing it sooner and it really wasn’t that hard to start.
If you haven’t started investing, start. Time is your friend and ally.
Get financially educated.
Start planning your retirement. It doesn’t just happen. The last ten years of work can be quite the gauntlet. Plan and set goals to make this easier and less daunting
No matter how great and tempting great things you see what others are doing in life.
Focus on planting your own seeds today in the ground and continue to tender and water it everyday.. You’ll thank me later.
Keep upgrading your professional skills. Don’t stop learning. You have another 30 years of work. A lot will change and you don’t want to get caught not being able to change as well.
If someone cuts you off aggressively while driving. Let it go!!! Maybe they need to take a massive shit or someone is fucking their wife. It’s not worth it.
Hit the dentist for a cleaning every 6 months
It’s easier to modify an existing fitness routine, rebuild after an injury, or get back to your current state if you keep showing up for yourself.
You don’t have to run yourself ragged to look better, feel better, and sleep better, but unless you won the generic jackpot, you do need to be consistent.
Source: guy who weighs less than he did in middle school and keeps getting personal best mile times in his 40s, spent most of his life obese.
Stop worrying
Start going for regular physicals/checkups and most importantly, blood work.
Love takes work, but it should never take suffering.
Create good health habits. The dumb shit you used to bounce back from in your 20s won’t last much longer.
Understand what IQ and EQ are
Have self-awareness
Being emotionally non-reactive to negative events is what women expect of you. They can lose their minds and fly off the handle, but you’re expected to remain stoic when shit hits the fan.
Staying in shape is a lot easier than getting back into shape. You don’t have to be a fitness nut, just maintain.
Tools: If you plan to use it once, try a cheap tool. If you plan to use it more than once, go ahead and buy a quality tool.
Buy a house NOW. It will be tough for a few years. You may not be able to put 20% down and have to do PMI, but you can always refi.
Also, always look for new jobs. It sucks when you have to leave after 6 weeks, but a company will never care about you.
I haven’t been “loyal” but my salary has increased 70k in 6 years.
Always be honest but you don’t have to be too honest. Never say anything you don’t believe to be the truth but you don’t have to tell everything you believe to be true.
You can pay for it now or pay for it later. This applies to pretty much anything with a cost. And the later cost is almost always higher.
What you eat will determine to a shocking degree how many aches and pains your body has and will have. And for all that is holy, figure a way to put aside 10% of your income each year in an investment.
Keep moving. It’s easier to do one more thing than to stop and get moving again. Conversely, watch out for that last thing you do. It’s usually the one that bites you in the ass.
Always be good and loyal to any women in your life but never put them first and always put yourself first.
Don’t stay in a relationship with someone who treats you like shit because you feel like you’ll never be able to find someone else who treats you better. (you will)
There is no one life hack or single piece of advice that will always apply. Life can come at you from all directions. Learn to stay calm in a crisis situation and assess which solution would best align with your values and priorities. Frequently take stock to determine if what you are doing with your life now will lead to your dreams and desires in the future. Don’t be afraid to take risks, there’s old saying “The little bird does not worry if the branch is weak for she trusts her own wings”. You will always recover.
Save tens of thousands of dollars by not having unprotected sex.
Be careful zipping up your fly if you aren’t wearing underwear.
If someone irritates you that says more about you than it does about them. Go find out why before it finds out for you.
Pick hobbies that are productive and add to your quality of life and pursue them passionately. It takes a while to get good at something, but eventually you can become proficient in many things. It will make you more interesting and more fulfilled.
Find any kind of way to stay active.
I suppose you are taking care of your health.
Now it’s your turn to help your parents take care of theirs, even small changes can be a huge quality of life difference In a few years, help them exercise a bit improve their diets, use some technology, spend time with them, ( mental health)
This is similar though 32 might be a bit early , but 40s.is definitely late.
Make sure to connect or reconnect with your most valued friends, once they approach their 20s is when the ones who are at a risk factor start getting screwed up/dying. One of my friends used to eat out a lot, dead at 35 be aye of a nasty stomach infection, the one who did meth died at 42, one had a degenerative disease, 40.
When you’re working out, treat setting up/taking the weight plates on and off the same as you would the lift. IE lift with your legs, keep your back solid.
I’ve almost never injured myself lifting. I’ve thrown out my back/knee/shoulder a dozen times twisting the wrong way to sling a 45 back onto a rack.
Start investing with whatever spare money you can. It compounds faster than you think
Re-check your allergy platelette(yeah what ever)
Learned I was allergic to black pepper at 40!
You can be right and still lose.
Save before you spend.
If you have 10 hours to cut down a tree, spend 9 hours sharpening the axe.
Stop drinking like you’re in your 20s while you still can. It will not get any easier as you get older, only harder.
Kids are better than money. Don’t prioritize a high paying career if you have to sacrifice time with your family. Money can’t buy happiness.
If you aren’t already, get debt free asap. Compounding interest it’s your best friend for a successful retirement.
Stay active, it only gets harder to start back up as you get older.
Start strength training and cardiovascular workouts, it will go a long way. Also get enough protein.
Regularly remove drama from your life. Some people just want to drag you down; don’t let them. You have full control of your life.
Cook your own food
Do things that benefit the old guy you.
Work out, get checkups and SAVE.
That life has no hacks.
Stop caring about most things that you currently care about. The less fucks you give, the happier you will be.
Wash your car in the rain.
You can reuse ZipTies
Compound interest is your friend
Water is the most adult drink out there
Always carry a small multitool.
You won’t need it till you do. And then you’ll need it badly.
People will always be there to tear you down. When they say low stuff to/about you go lower still.
If they call you ugly, say that your mom made you a pork chop necklace so the dog would play with you.
Give them no place to go that won’t make them look like a dick.
If you find a good mentor, learn from them and do them proud.
On the backside of that. If you see someone that reminds you of you at that age, be a mentor to them if you can.
And never make yourself completely indispensable. If the world will stop spinning because you aren’t there, you’ll never get to truly relax. Someone will always be trying to get you, so you can “fix it”.
Be the best you can be at what you do. But don’t be the ONE person that knows how to do what you do.
If you dealing or working with a group of people and they’re all assholes, you’re the asshole.
Also when you eff up at a job, just own up to it and fix it. Ive yet to have a boss that likes excuses.
Put away a little money toward retirement every paycheck, no matter what, and don’t touch it until retirement.
Lift weights.
Invest in low fee ETFs.
Blow hard on your razor when you finish shaving to get it completely dry. It’ll last much longer.
How to make a fire with minimal supplies. Hell, even spot yourself the lighter if you have to, but everyone should know how to start a fire and keep it going. Might save your life one day 🤷🏻♂️
Eat it from the back.
Get a vasectomy when you are 100% sure you are done having children, or if you know you never want children.
Getting old isnt a failure, it’s the reward for not dying young. Let go of youth and embrace being an adult. Learn to derive satisfaction from handling your responsibilities and forgive yourself a wrinkle or an ache or pain. Too many people my age spend too much time fighting against father time. Take care of yourself, but also recognize that no matter how much water you drink, how hard you work out or how much you spend on peptides, the clock will run out, you will get old and die. Dont waste it fearing it. Embrace being middle aged when the time comes, and embrace being a cool old guy when that time comes too.
There are no short cuts or life hacks
You gotta put the work in
Keep your professional development going and seek a better deal with a different employer at least every 4 years.
STRETCH
Don’t sleep on exercise. Don’t become the frail old man. Exercise keeps you out there. Why lose out on the sunset years of your life by being out of shape.
Lift weights 3-4x per week & take daily walks
It’s easier to stay in shape than get in shape.
Better be chunking away some money for retirement
Priorities.
Basically when you look around, you’ll see that there are people who live on autopilot, and people who are OK with suffering whatever discomfort is required to do the thing they actually want to be doing. And it’s generally the second kind who has things like decent careers, successful businesses, solid wives, and so on.
My life has become 10 times easier after I finally got it into my head that I actually do get to decide what I want to do, what emotions will accompany doing it, and that I can be doing pretty much anything – and the price, whether it’s temporary tedium, shame, having to play a character for a while, or even downright physical pain of hard labor and exercise is pretty much always worth paying.
So now every time I find myself angry, procrastinating or confused, I ask myself “OK, what’s my goal here?” And then I (try to) do the thing that needs doing.
PS. Priorities should come with the ability to show yourself grace. You won’t always have it in you to do the best thing. But you’re not a robot. Have some self-care too.
Pay yourself first
Automate savings, it should be your first transaction after getting paid. Live off the rest
You’d be surprised at how much more you’ll save, compared to just saving what’s leftover at the end of the month.
Most people can and will spend away any surplus, but when faced with a smaller budget have the capacity to get creative / frugal
Watch yourself when lifting shit. I feel like this ahead is when we’re ripe to pull our back for the first time lifting something heavy and awkwardly.
The things I hear about back problems are usually quite irritating and long lasting. I really want to avoid them.
Start commuting to work by bicycle
If you aren’t gonna think about it in 6 months it’s not worth getting worked up over.
Be extremely choosy about who you pick as your life partner. I married a woman I met at work basically because we were playing house and sleeping together. If I hadn’t fallen into bed with her, I definitely wouldn’t have married her. It lasted 7 years. I dated a lot after that, but stayed single for 12 years. I was much wiser and more selective the next time around. Don’t let your little head do your thinking!
Too many guys end up with a woman because they are sexually intimate and breaking up at that point is very hard. I know it sounds old fashioned but date and really get to know each other before having sex which clouds everything.
It’s easier to tolerate someone being themselves and who they are versus someone trying to be someone or something they’re not.
Value sleep. Get plenty of it. Lack of it leads to all sorts of health issues and worsens existing conditions.