Should a 50 year-old change careers?
A couple of years ago, I reached the age of fifty. Since that time, I have been making observations about my life at an accelerating clip. My wife, friends and colleagues tell me that it is a normal passage for fifty-somethings and that I should not be alarmed. Perhaps they are right. It is just a necessary phase of my development.
It is necessary that I accept the consequences of aging. I have gained some weight and lost some hair. I fall asleep a little sooner and want to awaken a little later. Exercise is a little more painful. I can handle most of those things gracefully on a daily basis.
However, when I look at my career, I can't help but feel the winds of change circling around my ears like the first nip of winter. I wonder if a fifty year old should even think about changing careers. It seems to me that an irony about later life appears when I ponder that possibility. When I was twenty-one, decisions seemed to be either black or white, yes or no, in or out.... over and out! Not any more! There are so many shades of gray now. A decision involving career change seems to have endless choices and endless consequences. To hash all this out will certainly require some thought, prayer, and meditation on my part. I think it will require some dialogue, too. But, it is so hard to talk about the issue in the current economic climate. Most people won't discuss it very long. I guess potential conversation mates are just too busy hanging on to their own jobs.
The second ironic thing I noticed when I took a career assessment test. It was supposed to identify my strengths, weaknesses, and needs. Instead, it showed me that I am very unhappy in my job situation and feel powerless to change it. I always thought I would become more valuble to an organization and worth more money if I had more experience. Don't we spend most of our youth trying to get experience? Well, now that I have it, I am probably more disposable than ever. I am really beginning to feel the pressure from the 30 year olds in the new class!
The third ironic thing I noticed is about education. I had lunch with a friend recently. He has a Ph.D and is considered an expert in his field. He told me that he was going to take his wife out to dinner to celebrate getting hired into a full-time position with benefits and a real salary. He had been working for this company for two years on contract assignments. Before that, he worked for them... for FREE ... just to get his feet in the door. Statistics show that a better education will improve the aggregate's performance in the job market; but it doesn't always do it for the individual!
The fourth ironic thing is about competition. Free markets, innovation, and survival itself depend on competition at some level. I like the analogy an economics professor used in one of my college courses. He said we all thrive somewhere between guns and butter, order and chaos, or victory and defeat. Ironically, it was acts of kindness that led me to the job I have held for over twenty-five years. I was unemployed, in between jobs; when I voluteered to help some folks in need. One of them told me about a job opening. A career began. So, much like the story of the tortoise and the hare, maybe the slower, softer path is more productive. At this fifty-something vantage point, it sure looks better than competing to a dead-heat with somebody for a few bucks!
Now, I suppose I could continue to point out ironies and wallow in them until misery takes over. Perhaps it would be more fun and more productive to choose a different path. I would like to pursue a path with some real deliverables. All I have to do is choose a new vocation. Pursue it with high heat until I accumulate enough experience to get hired. Work there long enough to get obsolete....and then..... Isn't that ironic?