30 Traps To Avoid By 30

I normally don’t care for birthdays. But this year, my biological clock came blaring like a forgotten alarm in the middle of a meeting.

I never imagined I’d be here at 30 — no job, no kids, not married.

But then again, what DID I imagine?

Anyways, many rabbit holes later I have not found the answer.

But I did create a list of 30 traps I’ve fallen in the last 3 decades.

See if you can spot some of them in your life.

1- Herd mentality

• Everyone knows to do the opposite of what the masses are doing. But no one prepares you for the emotional toll that comes with it. Which is why many people get stuck in this well-known trap.

• In order to go against the herd, you must prepare yourself for loneliness, doubts, questioning your own abilities, ridicules from your friends, and feeling like you don’t fit in anywhere.

• You must prepare to be wildly unrelatable.

2- Knowledge fallacy

• As you learn new things, a feeling of superiority will creep up on you.

• Be aware of it. Do not let knowledge inflate your sense of self-worth

3- Familial trap

• We love our family. But we cannot let them decide our lives for us or become our excuses to not fight for what we want.

• This one is a tough one for me to navigate. Because although I feel the need to carve my own path, I still feel a deep sense of responsibility to my family and that I’m not living up to it.

• You have to do a lot of reflection to find your balance

4- Being right

• When you’re trying to prove you’re right, what you’re really doing is proving that someone else is wrong. That their reality is inferior and they must submit to your reality.

• There are no right or wrong. Our realities intertwine but they are complex and personal.

• You lose when you walk away with a damaged relationship and an inflated ego.

5- Materialism

• This is the easiest trap to fall into. Why? Because our society is built on it.

• There’s nothing wrong with enjoying your labor. But always think about the hidden prices you’re not paying with money

6- Money = Solution

• Money can solve some of your problems but not as many as you think.

• Recognize when a problem seems financially driven but may have a hidden reason you don’t want to deal with.

7- Productivity trap

• The opposite of lazy is hardworking. But hardworking is not the same as busy.

• Hard working means choosing to do what’s hard — like focusing on one essential task, taking care of your mind, exploring a new perspective — not sitting at your desk for 10–12 hours a day.

8- Disguised selflessness

• I used to think I was a selfless person for giving up my own needs. But I was doing so because I was afraid of voicing them, or I wanted to be regarded as a kind and helpful person.

• Being aware of this early will save you years of feeling resentful and unappreciated.

9- Emotions trap

• “People buy with emotions and justify with logic” — actually, people do everything with emotions and justify with logic.

• Learn to master your emotions if you want to master the art of creating a valuable life.

10- Cheap rewards

• Spend most of your waking effort focusing on the effort:reward ratio.

• The amount of effort that goes into a task should be equal to or greater than the reward.

• This is how you build a life based on quality and destroy the innate tendency to give up when you don’t see immediate results.

11- Bandaid trap

• Don’t eat horribly your whole life and take diet pills to lose weight.

• Don’t wait to hit hardship to look for a solution.

• Building a good life requires years if not decades of consistent work. Start today.

12- Ideology trap

• You were born into a blank slate. But in order to become sufficient in a larger group function, you have to subscribe into various belief systems.

• If you don’t question the belief system handed down to you, you will never truly understand anything.

• The quality of your life directly hinges on how you use your mind. Take the process of learning very seriously.

13- Your mind

• Your mind creates your reality but it doesn’t know what’s good for you.

• If you’re not conscious about it, you will be trapped in a reality filled with dissatisfaction.

14- How-to trap

• Never let the phrase “I don’t know how” stop you from doing something.

• You don’t need to know how to do anything in life. You just need desire.

• You learned how to walk from the desire to get across the room.

• High quality desire is the engine that moves your life, not talent or knowledge.

15- Meaning

• Our planet is one of gazillions. On the grand scheme of things, there is no meaning.

• But on the micro scale, being alive has infinite meanings.

• Consider the fact that you are here reading this, instead of being a speck of dust or an egg rolling away on a countertop.

• You are the creator of your life’s meaning. It is whatever you decide it to be. So if you believe life has no meaning, that’s what you will create and that’s how you will live a depressing, meaningless life.

16- Logical reasoning

• Do not use logic to reason what you should do in life.

• Don’t try to weight between being a doctor vs lawyer, which has more benefits, who works longer hours, which one garners more respect. This is how you become utterly misguided.

• You can’t be analytical all the time. You have to connect with what moves you. And what moves you isn’t logic. It’s intuition.

• If you don’t feel good in your body and your life, no amount of logic will make it right.

17- Scientific trap.

• Don’t treat reality as though science is the only way to understanding it. It’s not.

• It’s one way to understand one small corner of reality.

• The sooner you accept this, the sooner your boundaries will expand.

18- External control

• Like a car on the highway, you cannot control other drivers, traffic or the weather.

• The only thing you can control is how you drive your car.

• Focus on this internal control and drive with complete alertness is how you avoid accidents.

19- Escaping negative emotions

• Our parents often try to save us from negative emotions — they stop us from crying, getting hurt, getting our hearts broken.

• But real growth comes from experiencing them.

• When you’re suffering, lonely, sad, depressed, angry — rather than numbing or distracting yourself, have the courage to feel into it more deeply.

• Feeling deeper into your negative emotions will teach you to feel deeper into positive ones

20- Finding clear answers.

• Don’t obsess over rules in life.

• Very few things in life have clear distinctions.

• Right vs wrong or good vs. bad are opposite ends of the same spectrum blurred by one’s background and experiences.

• Appreciate the complexity. It’s what gives your mind puzzles to figure out. It’s what makes life interesting

21- Motivation trap

• How many times have you told yourself “I’ll do it tomorrow”?

• Finding motivation isn’t conjuring the willpower to do it.

• It’s building the momentum and confidence through your daily routine to just do it. No matter what “it” is.

22- Deny, suppress, & ignore things

• They will always come back to haunt you because they will continue to exist as part of your reality. Learn to face problems and difficulties head on.

• Become a good problem solver, not a master hider

23- Backseat trap.

• You can’t sit in the backseat and wait for someone to hand you an opportunity, to show you how to change or tell you what to do.

• When it comes to setting the direction of your own life, you have to be proactive or you will always feel bad about yourself.

24- Paycheck trap.

• Knowing exactly where your next meal comes from is how they keep you docile and complacent.

• Never rely on this false sense of security. You can get cut off at moment’s notice.

• Always have a personal career-related project going on. Through these projects you build your skills, discover your passion and break free from limitations put on you by society.

25- Projection of your own mind

• Never assume you know what another person is going through.

• Vice versa, never assume something that works for somebody else will work for you.

26- Savior’s complex

• People have to be at a point in their life where they can be saved. If you force your views or lifestyle onto someone before they are ready, it will only serve to damage your relationship

• Most often, the need to save others is a deflection from helping the person who needs saving the most: ourselves.

27- Normalcy

• Have you ever thought about how weird noses are? Billions of unique shapes even though they all serve the same function.

• Imagine the complexity of the mind. It’s crazy how different one person’s mind is compared to another.

• Yet most people strive to live a similar life to everyone else. This is not normal.

• Normalcy is weird. Fitting in is weird.

• Be like a nose — stand tall for exactly who you are.

28- Defensiveness

• It’s ok that some people misunderstand you. It’s ok that they accuse you wrongly or even think badly of you.

• Your only job is to live with integrity and understand the motivation behind all your actions. You don’t need to convince anyone else. That’s self-respect.

29- Planning

• To live a good life you have to expect and plan less of it.

• Establish a set of principles and use them as the toolkit to improvise.

• Life is far too rich and mysterious to be planned out 10 years from now.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re a champion and I’ve saved the best for you

Trap #30:

Never, EVER under any circumstances go to Walmart on the Eve of Thanksgiving. It will cost your soul

That’s it! We did it!

Thank you for sticking around. I hope you found some of them helpful.

I’m trying to grow on Medium and I don’t know why. But if you’d like to go here and give me 50 claps I’d very much appreciate you 🙂 

Start climbing out of these traps! I’ll see you next week.

Ciao ❤️