Today is my fiftieth birthday. It feels like quite a milestone. This morning I was sitting in a presentation with a colleague from a unit I used to work in who when I asked him how things are going said: "This is my final year, I'm retiring"... so after discussing that for a bit I told him it was my 50th birthday today. He said he was working too hard to celebrate back in 2000. It's probably the halfway point in my adult life, though you never know how long you are going to live, of course, we can just rely on life expectancies and how long our parents lived.
Careerwise, I think I need to be a bit less like this guy - "my strategic plan is to say yes to everything" and more like this guy. Two of the bloggers I follow. I find it hard to say no, though I am doing it more and more. Early in your career I do think you want to say yes a lot, but then you need to start to get more selective or you'll never get anything good done. You need to decide what to invest time in. I've been fairly successful. Three years ago I was appointed full professor and I am a reasonably well known researcher in some circles. I'm happy with some of my research, but I still think I could do much better work.
I got my PhD at age 29, but in a lot of other ways I've been a late developer. Since my fortieth birthday I achieved one major typical life goal - getting married (six years ago now) but at 50 I still don't have children, have never owned a house etc. I guess these goals were never that important to me or I actually was opposed to them. If you follow the blog, you'll know we are still pursuing those two goals. We probably have achieved the goal of financial security, though it could still all unwind if things go really wrong. I'm definitely not a risk averse person. I have come quite a way though from the crisis point in 2008. I made the right decision to refocus on my academic career.
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