Been doing some soul-searching, thinking about missed opportunities, and the question arose: What if you were thirty again? Old enough to know better in most things but still young enough to maybe be a bit idealistic? If you had that time again, what would you do, paradoxes and future knowledge be damned?
Me, I’d join the Coast Guard. My pop was in it, I’ve needed that kind of structure all my life, and I think I’d like it, be good at it. Be a better and different person. You?
I’m pretty sure that one doesn’t just “join the Coast Guard.”
They have entry requirements just as rigorous as any police force or armed forces unit. This is a pet peeve of mine about people who want to “join the army.”
Me? I would have stuck it out at my employer of the day instead of jumping to “greener pastures.” Probably wouldn’t have married who I did, but hindsight is 20/20.
Would have remained living with my parents (as a single mother) & done everything it took to succeed in the field I was interested in. But I’ve found that the desire doesn’t go away & continue to pursue self-satisfaction, albeit sporadically. All is not lost.
I would like to think I would have been less idealistic - focused more on longer term practical goals.
Or at least been a better liar.
But I probably wouldn’t have …
Ahhh to be 30 again…it would have been last week.
I dunno if I’d call the Coast Guard (or the army) enlistment requirements particularly rigorous. There are minimum requirements for intelligence and physical fitness, but they’re pretty easily within the range of the average person.
But one requirement is that you be under 28, so in the OP’s case, he’s going to need to travel back in time a little further.
I have changed and grown a huge amount. If I could go back to then, knowing and being what I am now… wow.
When do I leave?
I don’t have any desire to be 30 again. I would have made different choices based on what i know now, but if I have the same knowledge I did then, I’d make the same mistakes all over again.
Well, yes, but asking “If you were 28 again” didn’t sound as catchy. 
And I know they have requirements, but I’d at least apply, and work to fulfill them till I could.
I’d probably sit around doing nothing, daydreaming about being 18 again.
I made some good decisions when I was 30, they were the right ones at the time and I had a pretty good life in the years following, so for me I wouldn’t do anything fundamentally different. I might have taken more responsibilities upon myself, rather than fob them off to others at every opportunity, but otherwise I wouldn’t change much.
I had opportunties then but didn’t know better;
I know better now but don’t have those opportunities.
Both then & now I can look at myself in the mirror and I like myself.
I’d have told myself to stay in school and get a PhD rather than get done with grad school and get a job. Basically what I didn’t like about my previous jobs only got worse with more education, pay and job titles, instead of getting better. I had the opportunity at 30 to get a doctorate and try that route without anything significant tying me down, like a mortgage, wife and child.
To wake up and suddenly be age 30 in 2011. Well, I’d probably have a much easier job getting hired.
To wake up and suddenly be age 30 in the year I was 30, with all the other years being a dream? I’d make changes in job choices, investments, home locations, lottery investments. I’d also get a printing press and make cards that said “Pokémon” and “Yuh-Gi-Yo” and literally start printing my own money.
Not thirty yet, but want to agree about the army. I know a few people who failed to get in for various reasons. They just won’t take anyone one. If you’re found mentally or physically unfit, you won’t be allowed in.
How old are you? If I may ask.
I’d start investing in my retirement more aggressively.
I’m so old that the only thing possibly worse than me getting older is me not getting older.
At 30 I was busy working my way out of the debt I’d incurred in my mid-twenties. Can I cheat and go back to my mid-twenties and tell myself not to buy so much stuff on credit?
The other advice I’d give myself would be to get more regular exercise. Thirty was about the time I started getting out of shape.
I’d be pregnant, so no thanks. I like the kid a lot, but the pregnancy isn’t something I wish to repeat.