Letting Go of Your Torschlusspanik

Written By Tunde Aideyan

The college class of 2012 has recently encountered a major life milestone — turning 30. Many of our closest friends have celebrated this momentous occasion or will do so by the end of the year (and many celebrations have been canceled due to Covid-19). Despite the assets of improved decision-making and greater emotional intelligence that await us in this fourth decade of life, our auspices are regrettably dampened by a remarkably emotional and existential wet blanket.

A variety of personal and professional implications are imprinted upon what is just another birthday with the number zero in it. Some feel it as a sense of impending doom or grief from a heavy loss. Some of the anxiety of turning 30 has to do with physical changes, like weight gain and hair loss. You might hear some women express frustration with the pressure of maternity and establishing a family.

It is an existential anxiety. It drives right to the core of who we are and who we want to become. It is a blunt challenge to one’s self-esteem when their internal desires don’t match their external accomplishments. Our physical changes are outpacing our mental ones. Or is it vice versa? Somehow, in our society, many intrapersonal conflicts of young adulthood are wrapped into the inevitable circumstance of turning 30.

It is also a rather cryptic anxiety that we soon to be/recently turned 30-year-olds are feeling. Luckily, the German language has a word for this feeling of unease…