I’m thirty now, which means that a quarter of my life is over.

I’m pretty stoked. I have a wonderful girlfriend, a new and awesome job as writer on television, and friends who swear they will never turn me in. Tomorrow I’m launching my first novel, a funny sci-fi about alien abductions. My advice: try to plan for birthdays which end in zero to coincide with big, positive steps in life so that everything is a champagne-spewing celebration rather than a grim march to the grave.

Incidentally, I’m very pleased to be out of my twenties. Not just because a lot of my twenties involved me trying to figure out what to do after college, then realizing I couldn’t do any of those things, because I was fresh to the work force during an economic period with the same robust nature of a dead squirrel. I don’t miss 2012 very much.

No, the real reason that I’m pleased to no longer be in my twenties is that years 28 and 29 have a lot of pressure riding on them. For example, leading up to college most adults I knew described it as “the time of their life.” Then they would get misty-eyed and nostalgic about binge drinking and college pranks, and ask me if I could score some weed for them. Around senior year the idea that college is magical but finite really hit me. I had one year left of college. Don’t blow it!

I didn’t. And, fortunately, my college experience becomes more rosy and fun in hindsight with each passing year. When I’m old enough to try and score weed off of my kids’ friends, I will look back on my university memories as a time when I flew through the air and shot beams of light out of my eye sockets.

Anyway, I’ve felt much the same about my high twenties. (Pro tip: say “high twenties” instead of “late twenties” if you find yourself in that age bracket. “Late twenties” makes it sound like you’re truant. “High twenties” sounds like you’ve achieved some august station in life. It’s like the difference between “losing your hair” vs. “going bald.” One of those options sounds careless.) When 29 hit this time last year, a little voice in my head continually reminded me, “You have precious little time left in your twenties. ENJOY THEM! SUCK THE MARROW FROM THE BONES!”

Now I’m thirty and can quit trying to squeeze every last drop from my particular age, and instead just enjoy myself. Which is actually a lot easier, as you become more self-confident as you get older.

For example, in my early twenties I had many friends who enjoyed visiting night clubs. If you’re unfamiliar with night clubs, they’re incredibly loud places where people go to get hepatitis. The drinks are exorbitantly expensive, but that’s okay because you have to wait ten minutes just to get a beer. The only club on the planet I’ve ever consistently enjoyed visiting is Opie’s, in Norman Oklahoma. Even so, at age 24 my friends could wrangle me into some sweatbox with all the aesthetic panache of an epileptic seizure, because I couldn’t stand missing out on something. Now, at 30, I’m much more able to turn down experiences which cause irreparable ear damage.

Similarly, in my early twenties, I felt compelled to join other people if they bought a round of shots. I do not like shots. They’re like plastic thimbles full of hangover juice. As opposed to a fine glass of single malt scotch, like the gods themselves drink. Nobody ever does shots in moderation. And even if you only intend to have “just one or two,” in my experience the whole effect snowballs and pretty soon you’re incoherently drunk and stealing a helicopter with Lindsey Lohan. (Probably the singular upshot of 2012.)

Clearly there are lots of benefits to one’s thirties. In fact, at least statistically, the next three decades should get consistently more fulfilling. Most psychiatric research indicates that your teens and twenties are the most angst-filled part of your life. Conversely, people tend to be happier in their forties and fifties (even with ageing) because relationships are deep, myriad and mature—by then you’ve had friends for multiple decades, and have potentially created your own humans to play with.

To everyone who wished me kudos on my birthday, and for all who have been a part of the preceding three decades, you have my deep and heartfelt thanks.

I Survived Until Thirty. Huzzah!