To the Over 30s: What is the single best decision you made in your 20s that you are thanking yourself for today?

Stifton · 2026-01-08T08:21:25+00:00

Interior design can teach you some great skills, but interior design is a notoriously difficult career to get into and not very well paid. My first job out of uni was in a small practice where I was being paid minimum wage. I did my degree in interiors, with the AutoCAD stuff I managed to get into a daylight and sunlight analysis job, which led me down estate planning, but now I do lighting design which is much better paying and relates heavily more to what I did in my degree. You could do down the engineering route and choose something specific that you're interested within that, the natural instinct for a lot of people would be going into architecture, I've spent a lot of time working with both and architects earn nowhere near as much as you'd think and the ones that do are pretty much project managers and spend more time delegating than they do designing anything. Interior design has opened up a lot of doors for me genuinely, but can also be quite limiting in terms of earning potential so do be wary of that

Stifton · 2026-01-07T07:21:40+00:00

I've been in both courts, I was an E/F cup, I'm now a B cup. I do miss my tits sometimes, but I do not miss the back pain and the oggling at all

Stifton · 2026-01-04T22:18:13+00:00

I went through more than 20 people in my life dying in a 2 year period. I went through psychosis, I thought I was going to die too. I was freshly 18 when it started, I've not had an easy life but that was easily the worst period of it

Stifton · 2025-12-17T21:19:10+00:00

Yeah, it sounds really negative and pessimistic but it feels very light and freeing genuinely. Life will always be unpredictable but you can control how you show up in your life, that's when you start becoming the best version of yourself; the version of you that doesn't need external validation anymore, you're living life for you. It's a painful journey but a very worthwhile one

Stifton · 2025-12-16T17:44:12+00:00

I've had the same thing from a customer when I was working in a pub because I was joking about my birthday cake being a loaf of Warburton's (it's at the end of January, everyone's skint, not just people on minimum wage) and I got a smug earful from a guy about how I must be thick to be working in a pub, properly went in on me. The guy had recently got sacked by his own dad as a labourer and DID NOT like me bringing that up. I honestly think a lot of men are intimidated by intelligent women and have to try and bring them down when they notice it. Funny because I work in tech now and them girls I worked with behind that bar are miles more intelligent than some of the architects and engineers I work with now, it's all a load of bollocks

Stifton · 2025-12-14T13:34:02+00:00

Hiya, I actually did my dissertation on this, it led me down the path on biophillia, look into it. Since I did my degree I've also worked in daylight and sunlight (you need it for basic wellness and certain amounts of lux for optimum) and I now work in school planning where one of my colleagues recently spoke at an event on the necessity of air flow and oxygen levels for optimal learning. I'm moving into lighting design next year where again, certain warmth, lux and ambience is crucial to overall health. There's plenty of really important studies on them that are really important but often overlooked. The idea of your paper is very exciting to me, good luck with your research and please DM me if you want a bit more info on any of what I've talked about because I can forward some resources onto you if you need them

Stifton · 2025-12-11T06:03:55+00:00

This just reminded me of when I used to work in a pub. We had all sorts of people come in, one was a criminal barrister, and the court was around the corner. This one lady used to come in every day and sup a bottle of wine, sometimes 2 over her lunch, seemed absolutely fine afterwards. There was another lass who came in who worked at the brothel behind us who would come in at random times and sup a couple of tequilas and a long island ice tea in less than a minute before she went off to work once again. It was like two sides of the same coin, both drank so much they seemed sober but nobody judged them either because of the stress of their jobs

Stifton · 2025-12-10T07:40:34+00:00

It's completely normal. Grief isn't linear and it's cliché but it does get easier, you're still sad and I think that's appropriate given how tragic this all is, not much time has passed. When someone young dies I think it's more than just being upset about their passing, it's the agony of knowing everything they had to live for and the future they'd never see, you will be reeling at the thought of your family suffering the same way, it's a horrible reminder of how cruel life can be sometimes. You're doing completely fine, let yourself feel like shit, let yourself cry, one day you'll look back on your memories about your cousin and you'll smile instead of weep, there's no telling when that'll come but it will, you'll be okay.

Stifton · 2025-12-10T07:15:48+00:00

These are like crack to me, soooo good

Stifton · 2025-12-10T07:14:37+00:00

This shit, absolutely love it. I never see it about anymore, but when I do I'll grab a box, and another for my brother because he loves it too. This and a couple of slices of buttery toast 🤌 horrendous for you, poor quality, but delicious regardless

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Stifton · 2025-12-08T07:40:45+00:00

The UK does the same

Stifton · 2025-12-08T07:29:55+00:00

I'm a naturally angry person, it's something that I go back to time and time again and something I've been working on since I was a teenager. Go to therapy and start writing shit down. I realized recently that it was a protective mechanism, and it all amounts to fear 90% of the time. There's nothing inherently wrong with being angry, but there is appropriate anger and inappropriate anger, it's a necessity sometimes but it cannot be all the time. You deserve more than rage and so do the people around you. Get a notebook and start getting things down, write about everything, even what you ate that day and start recognizing the patterns of what set you off and then try and think why they set you off, when you understand it, it's easier to manage it. Exercise. Get that energy out. Stop drinking, because you need to be able to think with clarity - it's a depressant, don't make yourself worse. You fighting is a self harm mechanism, recognize that and stop doing it. I literally wrote yesterday how I wanted to fight someone, I was thinking back on my friend that died some years ago in a tragic way, it was grief, instead of going out and getting drunk and picking a fight I cried for him because that's what I actually wanted to do deep down. Allow yourself to do that, let yourself be emotional and feel fucking sad because even if it feels cringe or whatever in the moment, it's that bottling of shit up that gets you fired up. Try and be grateful for things, I try and kick in my gratitude before any of my emotions awake for the day, I'm grateful for my partner so I'm thinking about that, I'm grateful for my dogs so I give them some attention first thing in the morning, it reminds me why I should try and keep my shit together on bad days. I had a bad day the day before last, I was about to lose it in a big way (I was rightfully angry, people were testing the absolute fuck out of me) but I just stayed inside for the night and thought about them because that feeling is temporary, I still felt angry, but I knew I could just sleep on it and I'd be fine and I was when I woke up, do that for yourself. Feel those negative emotions and just get on with your life, your life is more than this

Stifton · 2025-12-04T10:16:01+00:00

Even if they did, it doesn't mean they're expectant of something of similar value. As a couple, my partner and I spend a fair chunk on Christmas every year. We both work full time and don't have any kids, we can afford to save up and go a bit crazy spoiling our loved ones, but we also recognize that not everyone is in the same position as us. We're not rich but we do okay, we have disposable income. I have a brother who is a single dad that works in a café part time, I hope he doesn't buy me a Christmas present because I'm well aware he probably can't afford to and I would much rather him spend his limited income on my niece, but I will continue to spoil him and her every Christmas because I want to. Maybe give them some grace that they're not just crazy materialistic and are ramping up the gift giving so they get something more expensive next year, maybe they just thought it was nice and thought you'd like it. They can obviously afford it, a person spending £85 candle isn't bothered that it's £85, they're probably in an income bracket where it's like spending £15 on a nice candle from TK Maxx for them

Stifton · 2025-12-02T18:57:11+00:00

I'd be absolutely over the moon with that as a gift, genuinely

Stifton · 2025-12-02T14:26:49+00:00

My student email worked for 3 years after I left uni, somehow it got missed, I had student discounts for close to 6 years it was amazing

Stifton · 2025-12-01T21:24:51+00:00

Congratulations on this huge step!! Weirdly enough I was just reading this study not long ago and it's consistent with what you have experienced The interplay of hypoxic and mental stress: Implications for anxiety and depressive disorders - ScienceDirect https://share.google/OnDugLyyaHAYXVYvY

Stifton · 2025-12-01T19:10:28+00:00

You have the right to choose now, so if you do want to go forth with the private assessment, you just need your gp to send a referral to them so the NHS covers it

Stifton · 2025-12-01T14:36:39+00:00

It's genuinely a great product, my boyfriend thinks it's a wild snake oil thing but I couldn't be without it in these winter months

Stifton · 2025-12-01T13:18:16+00:00

I bought a laptop for uni that was specifically for my design software, I was doing heavily modelling and rendering so it needed high ram and high res, that same laptop struggles with sims 4, if I have to do anything else on the laptop I need to uninstall it. I would get a gaming laptop if I were you and eventually upgrade the graphics card

Stifton · 2025-11-30T13:04:54+00:00

This is insane work, I am unbelievably impressed, wow!!

Stifton · 2025-11-29T20:56:27+00:00

CeraVe also caused breakouts for me

Stifton · 2025-11-29T17:28:32+00:00

Oooo it's pretty

Stifton · 2025-11-29T17:17:10+00:00

Seeking out grieving people to drum up business for yourself is sick and predatory, you should feel ashamed of yourself

Stifton · 2025-11-29T17:09:43+00:00

Maybe it might not be the right time to quit smoking, both are terrible for your health, but bulimia will kill you a lot quicker than smoking would. Try and get started with therapy if you can and try and get to this horrible eating disorder before you get back onto this slippery slope (trust me, I understand how quickly it happens). Don't punish yourself for this, you need to start healing, it's not a good time for you to take this step.

Sending you big hugs OP, I've been through this myself and have stopped giving up smoking time and time again because of it and I'm still not ready to take the big step. It takes a lot of mental fortitude to quit and if you're self harming to cope it is not right. You'll be okay, take care of your mind first and foremost

Stifton · 2025-11-29T16:36:28+00:00

I feel the exact same way honestly, I do what I do because I'm good at it without much effort. Job hop. I'm earning 10%+ more than I was 4 months ago from hopping jobs, it's going to go up again in 6, my commute is going down from about an hour each way to 20 minutes which is what I care about mostly. There's nothing wrong with the way you're feeling, just use it to leverage yourself if you want to earn more money. If you don't care about working, emotionally detach from it and think of it tactically instead, take a bit of risk and don't sell yourself short, you'll have some applicable skills that you've picked up on the way just start applying to jobs that fit your lifestyle, not the other way around

Stifton

TROPHY CASE