29 Things I’ve Learned At 29 That Really Suck But Are 100% True
By Doug Belttr
1. Anyone who says to you “send me your résumé,” or any variation of that, isn’t going to help you get a job. They will either not send your résumé on to their HR person or they will have no idea what that HR person is looking for in a candidate. Also, no one knows what a résumé should look like. Every single person you pass your résumé to for a review will have advice that directly conflicts with someone else you passed your résumé to.
2. If you feel like you should be famous for any reason, just stop it. Try to make a list of all the famous people you can think of. Okay, is that list 70 million people long? No? Okay, so less than one percent of people will ever be famous. And you’re probably not that interesting.
3. Basically everyone is stupid. Most people just regurgitate headlines they’ve read, but they’ll say something like “I’ve read several articles about X…” No they haven’t, they read one article headline, but they want to add weight to what they’re about to say.
4. Pretty much everyone you work for will be an idiot. They will push simple tasks on to other people because they’re “too busy” to send a two sentence email. The very act of them passing this task on to you took longer than the actual task itself. This is a means to shift responsibility from them to you as to shield them from anything negative that may come from the task. Just understand that.
5. If you don’t want to work in a cubicle forever you probably should have thought of that at 18. If, for whatever reason, someone who is 18 is reading this, let me give you some advice: major in a STEM field. Nothing else will pan out. Except maybe finance. Actually, just major in finance, but don’t be a douche about it. Okay, that’s impossible. Major in STEM.
6. If your dreams aren’t dead by 29 you’re delusional. Just accept that you’re going to have just an okay life and do mediocre stuff. This is why Katy Perry’s “Roar” is such a bullshit song. “You’re gonna hear me roar!” Oh, shut up, no we won’t.
7. Older people will tell you that you need to stay in a job for at least three years before looking for a new one. They’re old and lying.
8. Learn to appreciate the praise you get. Look, you’re not going to get A’s at work and your boss isn’t going to pat you on the head every time you turn your reports in on time. If it weren’t for credit card offers praising my “financial responsibility!”, I don’t know what I’d do.
9. People on Instagram and Facebook who are constantly on vacation and doing amazing things are (A) lying, (B) born wealthy, (C) secretly crushed by insurmountable debt.
10. Leave Facebook. It’s terrible.
11. If you write something on the Internet, use a fake name.
12. People are entirely too conservative and high strung. We live for something like 75 years on a planet in an infinitely expansive universe and one day our planet will be devoured by our sun.
13. Everything that ever was or ever will be will be devoured will be erased from time. Who the fuck cares if gays want to marry and if people say “fuck” on TV?
14. Every corporation is evil, even Apple and Whole Foods.
15. You will meet incredibly stupid people who went to Ivy League schools, but it still matters where you went to school. If you went to a good state school, no one will care five years after graduation, but if you went to an Ivy, people will care forever, no matter what anyone says.
16. Bravo represents everything that is wrong with the world and Andy Cohen is the personification of it all.
17. 95% of people have meaningless jobs. That’s just how the world works, has always worked, and will continue to work until the earth is engulfed by the sun.
18. If you’re not saving at least 15% of your salary by age 29, you will never retire.
19. College prepares you for pretty much nothing. And unless someone is paying for grad school, don’t bother.
20. Breaking Bad actually IS the best television show ever. That is not a subjective statement.
21. Join a gym, you probably won’t go, but you’ll feel better about yourself.
22. Moving in with your significant other to save money will never work out well.
23. If you move to a major city with a robust public transit system, but refuse to sell your car, just move to the suburbs now. It’s going to happen within five years, so cut your losses and just stop taking up space in the city.
24. 24 hour news networks and social media have already ruined the rest of human existence.
23. If you’re “easily offended”, you’re a weak person and should never move to an area that contains a majority of people that are different than you. You’ll make yourself and everyone else happy if you just stay where you are.
25. Neither political party knows what it’s doing. And even if either did have a clue, nothing would get done (see point number 23).
26. There isn’t a single religion that makes sense, so believe whatever you want.
27. If you work in an office, there is absolutely no reason for your phone to ever be on any setting other than silent.
28. Nothing good happens after 2AM.
29. Lists about what people you’ve never met have learned in X number of years are usually just flowery bullshit.