1. Create a retirement fund in the form of a large pile of gold upon which you will perch for the rest of your life.
2. Somehow manage to find a dragon, either through a magical quest or clearly unethical genetic engineering, to protect your pile of gold.
3. Find the career you want to be in for the rest of your life and fulfil all your dreams, because everyone knows nothing ever changes in your life after you turn 30.
4. Find your personal style and never feel the need to experiment with clothes ever again, because obviously your consumer choices in ultimately inconsequential things are the truest sign of maturity and your body shape will never change ever again.
5. Pay off your student debt.
6. But obviously, you can’t use any of that pile of gold as you’ll need something to sit on until you retire, so you’ll probably need to sell all of your internal organs and/or forge some sort of unholy alliance with the devil to do this.
7. Have a child. You’re young, you can handle it! Just squeeze one out, no problem. Besides, everyone obviously wants and can have kids!
8. Travel lots! Take your newborn baby with you! The salt plains of Bolivia are the perfect place for a newborn!
9. Go to South East Asia for six weeks to discover yourself. Although instead of discovering yourself, spend the rest of your life talking about those six weeks at every single dinner party.
10. Fall in love and get married.
11. But also, fuck conventions and sleep around forever and never get married.
12. Move to a whole new city. Get a new name. Burn off your fingerprints and assume an entirely new identity. The experiences you’ll have living under a new identity will be invaluable!
13. Move to New York and buy a pair of Monolo Blahniks on credit and sit alone in a tiny, rented room in a tiny apartment and weep. Weep because Sex and the City was set twenty years ago when you could buy a Manhattan apartment for $9.45.
14. Have an existential crisis. You won’t have time for those after you’re 30, because by then you’ll be an entirely self-actualised, self-assured human being prone to no flaws or faults ever again.
15. Quit your day job! Who cares if it doesn’t work out and you remain jobless for months after, the most important thing is the experience, even if that experience is extreme stress and regret.
16. Start a business.
17. Don’t have an idea for a business? It doesn’t matter! The most important thing is to seem like a successful enough entrepreneur until you can get a book deal and write about how to become an entrepreneur.
18. Improve your knowledge of wine. Sure, your liver might suffer for it, but hey – at least now you’ll know which £10 bottle to go for.
19. Have another child. Why not? They only need constant attention and love for the next eighteen years minimum and cost thousands to raise.
20. Learn to play a musical instrument. Also, learn another language. And read a new book every day. And run a marathon monthly. Never sleep again.
21. Go to a networking event. Stand there awkwardly for an hour, sipping on acidic, cheap white wine and clutching onto your freshly-printed business cards. Realise everyone else there is doing exactly the same thing and can’t do shit for you. Feel awkward and leave.
22. Chase your dreams!
23. Unless your dreams are to have a stable income and a comfortable home life, because your dreams must include incredibly expensive travel paired with a very niche career.
24. Get rid of anything that doesn’t serve you! That dress you never wear? Get rid of it. That degree that turned out to be useless? Burn it. Capitalism as a whole? Put it in the bin.
25. Volunteer at a charity!
26. But only for a few weeks because obviously you need to prioritise following your dream of starting your own artisan banana-holder business. A few weeks is enough to get your karma up. That’s how that works, right?
27. Go bungee jumping or on a survival course! Or try paragliding, or zip-lining, or any sort of extreme sport! Anything just to feel alive. They'll be no more of that after you turn 30.
28. Learn how to cook! This one is pretty important because you need to do this to live, and frankly it’s amazing you’ve gotten this far without doing it.
29. Build a personal brand. “But what does that mean, I am merely an individual human being and not a corporation?” I hear you say. In that case, your personal brand is clearly a complainer.
30. Go to a music festival, even if you hate camping and don’t care for most music. It’ll rain and the majority of the time will be spent wandering aimlessly from one obscured stage to another, then waiting in line to use a very soiled outdoor toilet. But at least you can tick one thing off these wretched bucket lists.