I was out of work for almost 5 years after the tech bubble of 2008. I blew through my retirement accounts to keep paying for my house, which I need to renegotiate (New Year’s resolution). I’ve got a steady job now, but at 57 I’m not going to be able to live on retirement, so I’m going to work until I drop. No wife, no kids, just dogs, so at least they can eat my cadaver when that happens.
Lovely work!
I stopped working at age 59 due to disability, now I do whatever I want. I do some volunteer stuff, travel as much as I can, took up guitar playing, do a lot of craft stuff also. Happy, happy, happy!
Hopefully I will have an update this week. Hopefully. 
In my late thirties I made a very sudden career change to work on disaster contracts after spending most of my life doing whatever clerical job I needed to do to get by. The odds weren’t on my side, but so far I’ve more than doubled my income and traveled all around the country, so there’s that.
At 57, and after 38 years in a relationship, I’m realizing I should never have married.
Thanks! It keeps me out of trouble.
Most toilet paper, soaps, fragrances, etc. are just gateway products that agitate the organs. I’m so much happier standing in a wooden bucket full of distilled water and gently patting myself with a moistened terry cloth.
That’s been one of the mantras of my life. I learned to take care of sick people and to herd children while a child myself: I completely refused to make either one the work of my life.
At the same time, that a particular skill isn’t the work of my life doesn’t mean I’m not doing it at all or that I don’t remember how to do it: part of my job as a consultant is to teach people (parts of) how to do their job, and all that experience herding kids comes very handy! I still don’t ever want to face a room full of 5 year olds day after day after day after day for even a single day would be too long months. Put me down to a choice between that or death, I’ll appreciate it if the sword is sharp.
I realized at some point in my early 40s (I’m 46 now) that even though I may have the personality and skills to be an effective manager or leader, that I don’t really “fit” the mold of what most private companies look for when they’re looking to promote. I’m too dorky/not frat-boyish enough and not willing enough to subordinate my entire life to the demands of the job.
Once I realized that, it was a pretty freeing moment. I quit worrying about trying to “get ahead” and just concentrated on doing my job. That, and I accepted that where I worked sucks if you have no expectation to get promoted. So I changed to the public sector, and so far (8 months later) everything’s great.
And the real irony is that there have been little whispers about me being eminently promotable to management.
I’ve always thought I would enjoy and succeed in law school and practicing law.
After I graduated college though, I was too anxious to start my life (get married and have a family) to seriously consider more schooling.
I have a great job with excellent benefits and a great pension, but law school is still always in the back of my mind.
My wife and I have talked about it, and she’s supportive, but it’s the logistics of making it work IRL that are problematic.
What does your gut say?
Sometimes you can overthink this kind of thing. I was talking about this with someone just this morning. Take a few steps in that direction and see if you hit one obstacle after another, or if things start to fall into place. You can’t foresee everything that might happen along the way, so don’t try. Not only does every journey of 1,000 miles begin with a single step, but every journey of 1,000 miles IS MADE UP OF single steps. Don’t automatically turn away from a future that you’ve always wondered about because you can’t picture how every detail of that future might work out, you know?
Brava to your wife for being supportive. (If I were married to you, I’d be supportive, too. This is exactly what spouses/partners should be to each other.)
Don’t think about how you’ll feel when you’re doing it. Think about how you’ll feel after you’ve done it.
I tried it and you’re right. Thanks!
Anymore things you figured out about meditation?
I figured out later in life that if I kept my mouth shut more often, I’d get into less stupid discussions.
My family doesn’t need to know every little thing I do. Every bit of information that I tell them just gives them fuel to tell me that I’m doing it all wrong. So nowadays I just give them as little knowledge about me as possible.
51, laid off about a month ago. I’ll let you know how it goes. But I can tell you when I open my eyes in the morning I’m smiling. That’s not a metaphor. I really am smiling. You don’t realize how much stress something is until it’s gone. Just knowing I don’t have to deal with that job anymore is a relief. My ex-boss was nice enough to invite me and the other lady that was laid off to a department lunch today, and it was great seeing everyone. But I’m gearing up for my next adventure. Onwards and upwards!
I say go for it. Even if it doesn’t work out, it will be a learning experience, and you can use that as a stepping stone to something even greater.
Years ago I went to get some advice re. job searching which included taking one of those personality tests and talking about how your results fit or not with the kind of jobs you were looking for.
As a ChemE (which in Spain most people commingle with “chemist” but not with “engineer”) with a decade’s worth of experience as a lab tech and lab manager (the “buy stuff and shepherd researchers” kind), I was looking for a job along the lines of Quality Manager in a factory.
The psychologist took a look at my results and said I showed “undefined” in pretty much every axis and that no way would I ever get hired as a manager. Say whaaaat? OK, so
- it turns out that a lifetime of learning to be moderate and to look at things from multiple angles is interpreted in the test she was using as “undefined” rather than as “moderate” or “thoughtful” or anything like that;
- since the jobs I was looking for said “Manager”, she wanted someone who showed as a Leadership 10 in the Leadership/Subordination axis. To which my response was “you’ve just explained why people complain so much about why it’s so difficult to find middle managers” and proceeded to explain that being a manager doesn’t mean you’re not also a subordinate.
Often what people think they want, what they say they want, what the people hearing it understands, and what is actually needed, are very different things whether we’re talking about a person for a job, a computer program, a car or even a meal.
Honestly, I didn’t fully grasp “don’t be a dick” until much later in life than I should have (my 40’s), and am still working on it tbh.