Who found their best selves, their calling, later in life?
Who found their best selves, their calling, later in life?
We hear about all the young people making a big deal of their successes in their early years. Twenty-something tech gurus or entrepreneurs that make their fortune early.
Who here is past 45-50 and maybe made a switch or restarted and found success and a modicum of happiness in their new position?
If later in life means, more recently... I started my first business during COVID in my late 30s. Doing great!
Do tell, if only in general terms - might just be motivational, or might inspire someone in an adjacent area.
I am fortunate in that I took a very niche applied science in university, and was successful in that career as an employee/consultant -- geophysics. So I have high value, rare technical skills. I blew out my knee in the high arctic doing scientific surveys -- so I decided to try to parley those skills into something where I could be my own boss. Fortunately I also picked up a business partner with a similar background (former coworker) who wanted to run the business side of the business.
During COVID I started an equipment business to provide the required specialty tools to other geophysicists -- things like ground penetrating radar and such. There was exactly one business already operating in this space in Canada, so there was room for a second player. It's a high capital business -- I'm basically taking the capital risk of buying rare equipment and spreading it out across the continent. (People don't want to buy a $50k device to use for a week.) But it was a huge risk -- I have one business partner, and we both wagered out houses on the startup loan. We're past the hump now and our revenue is directly funding growth, so huzzah! (It took six months to get our first client -- but now it's about six hours between clients, without having to do any marketing bullshit.) I have real world hands on experience with all the gear and am not just a sales robot, which keeps everyone coming back for advice, opinions, networking, and we are growing by word of mouth.
My boss is a hardass though. ;)
Changed careers and went into decarbonization and environmental protection research at 39. So glad that I now feel like what I do matters and my purpose has meaning. Findings can sometimes be depressing tho
That’s gotta be depressing for sure sometimes. Hope we’ll get a clue and start acting on what people like you recommend.
thats dope as hell man
my wife is a data scientist and is getting into environmental impact
Money isn't everything in life..
True, but if you are caught in a fundamentally violent economic system that essentially dictates to you, “be profitable to someone else or suffer and risk destitution, homelessness, and even early death”, you join the other 99% in hustling for every dollar you can earn rather quickly.
Boomers frequently don’t understand this, having lived their most productive years in the most economically vibrant era of western civilization, where a minimum-wage job was able to let a single wage earner have a spouse and a few kids, a good roof over their heads, a car in the driveway and a vacation at least once a year, all the while having more than enough left over to save for retirement.
Those days are long gone, with even highly-educated DINK’s struggling and going homeless, and never having enough to even survive well, much less thrive and save for retirement.
I should have replied to your comment instead of creating a new thread. You touched on so many points I also wrote about in my wall of text, it's not even funny :D
I didn’t mean to imply financial success was the only success.
Discovered my gender and sexuality in my mid 30’s. I turn 40 in 2 weeks and am continuing to find myself and become more and more comfortable in my skin and am genuinely happy for the first time in my life.
Saaaame, happy for you <3
It's a scary world right now but we got this.
I'm 45 and all I've managed to do is accept the reality that I always have been and will continue to be counting days until oblivion gets here. The main difference between then and now is a half dozen pills a day and years of therapy so that I no longer desperately want to expedite the process.
Sorry to hear, that sounds rough. I dont know if youre feeling this way because of your job, given the topic of this thread... but if it means anything, I believe that someone's value is measured based on many other factors besides what they do for a living. Hope things look up.
I'm so sorry to hear that :(
I feel ya.
I'm lying here alone right now, in my noisy hovel of an apartment, scared shitless, trying to block out the sound and light, to sleep as wave after wave of sorrow washes over me. The pills really aren't working so well lately. Hooray for "the weekend."
For the first time in my life I'm considering substance abuse. The world mostly just disgusts me right now.
Try watching Epicly Later'd by Vice, it has some people who achieved something after their teenage years which seems to be the cut off usually. Personally idk I'm a fuck up never did anything worthwhile I just switch hobbies every two weeks cuz adhd when life is basically over by mid-20s
I have ADHD and do the same thing with hobbies...so hear me out here.
I worked in the industry of my college degree for 7 years but the company killed my interest in it. I switched careers, quickly learned it wasn't for me, and changed industries again less than a year later.
I felt like a failure and stayed at that job for 6 years, staying miserable the whole time. I thought that would be my life forever as I missed my chance at securing a career in my 20s.
But then I was talking to a guy I used to work with about it and he asked if I had considered another (less drastic) change. I didn't think I had the skills for it but he encouraged me to message another old coworker anyway. I did - and his referral led to an interview where I lied about knowing AutoCAD. I was offered the position and watched tutorials for 2 weeks and it's been smooth sailing ever since. I love what I do now and hope to work here for 20+ years
I know where your head is at and I know it's borderline impossible to see a bright future but....keep your eyes open. There's a ton of jobs out there that I'm sure you'd be great at even though you don't even know exist.
Your current skills may be applicable or at the very least transferrable. Hobbies CAN lead to careers and I'll bet the sum of your short-lived ones add up to something interesting. Your life definitely isn't over.
Just to add to this - worth searching job sites casually and just paging thru “remote” and “no degree” without a keyword.
Haven’t found my perfect niche yet, but have definitely discovered a bunch of stuff that never crossed my mind.
Oh don't get me wrong I am actually happy. Most of my life was just a struggle to survive, being a refugee etc constantly living constantly suffering from a cruel illness as well as under the fear of death and poverty(esp. homelessness). I feel like it's pretty standard stuff for a working class genz, I don't know anyone who even chose jobs before, everyone took what they could get and tried to make the best of it.
Still, years ago I couldn't imagine the comforts I have now. Non-plastic silverware, dehumidifier, it's crazy.
Every year my life is quite literally objectively better than the last. I feel blessed.
Thanks for writing all that anyway though I hope it helps someone!
As for me I don't give a flying fuck about what I do because no matter what skills I have it'll just be used to exploit labour more efficiently by corporations that do somehow probably ties back into marketing or other ways to be a parasite on the supply chain, but it's a shame I was not born a sufficient genius to dictate terms to them e.g. being a big name in academia etc but eeeeh wasn't meant to be.
I found out at 38 that I really love working out. I wish Id found out 20 years earlier before my testosterone was in decline.
38 is still really a decent spot for that. Men and women both have unrealistic expectations set when it comes to body image thanks to fashion and entertainment industries. Get yourself a good routine and you can still look great. None of us are going to have a Chris Evans’ Captain America body without steroids and personal training.
Oh dont get me wrong, Ive made a lot of progress but I still have to work twice as hard for half as much gain compared to the young guys we train with.
I also have some pretty strong views on PEDs, if I can smoke cigarettes and put strain on our health system, or eat myself into morbid obesity and put strain on our health system, I should be allowed to go to a doctor and have a professionally managed course of steroids if I want.
Starting working in IT at 45. It's cool, and I'm looking forward to the future of my career. First paid days off in my life.
I'm not 40 to 55 but I find that typically career changes later in life (I'm assuming that's what you are referring to) typically revolve around a topic that the person is already familiar with. If you are worried about your career choice you can always take a few introductory classes on other skills now to keep "in your back pocket" for later.
I heard of people that took a welding class in highschool or similar, getting laid off and nearly evicted in their 40s/50s. However that little bit of experience early on meant it was easy to pickup the trade later. Especially if the trade is in demand and companies are willing to train newbies.
Finished my BA in "regular study time" (3 yrs) and then decided to also do the MA degree within the regular study time (2 yrs), due to the gvmt student loan scheme telling you to fuck off if you take only a day longer than the alloted time (which is way to short for the extend of all required courses). Burnt out right before writing my thesis and had to look for a job to keep myself from becoming homeless. Got royally exploited by the company I worked at but was able to save a lot of money due to my still very frugal lifestyle that I had to pick up during my studies (the monthly student loan being below the officially recognized poverty threshold). Handed in my resignation after 2.5 yrs without having anything lined up because the exploitation and pressure for new tasks without any bump in pay were too much to take. Took it slow and used up 2 years to finish the odd unfinished course and my MA thesis in East Asian Politics while living completely off my savings meant for retirement. The way I figured, this is just preponed retirement, living a frugal but satisfying life and investing my time in my political studies and philosophy. Came out a way better man than the broken and bitter husk I've been when quitting my job. During this time I had to pay back my student loan (10k EUR) with my savings I was also relying on to not become homeless, had a child, finished my MA degree, and, most importantly, joined a progressive political party, as I couldn't take the broken state of our society anymore. This may have been the best decision of my life (next to having a child), as it provided me with an alternative source of self-worth, next to my professional career which had now been in shambles. I engage in local politics and partake in most of the regular meetings and projects the local branch of my party undertakes. There I met intelligent and interesting people who I became friends with, that also share my passion to make the world a fairer and better place for us and our children. I (mid-30s) am currently on the job hunt after recently finishing my degree and am extremely relaxed towards finding a job, seeing as I can always job hop away from a bad one whilst retaining my dignity and self-worth through my political engagement. Life is finally good.
I retrained in control system engineering after 15 years getting nowhere and it was the best thing I ever did. My work is much more fulfilling, there's always something interesting to look in to. Finding something that you're inspired by is a huge deal.
How did you retrain? Did you have to go to college?
Most of my formal education occurred as an adult. I went to university when I was 35, only intending to complete an MSc but ended up working there and got a PhD after about ten years. I work as a specialist in the automotive industry now but will probably branch out of automotive. One of the appealing aspects of control systems is their ubiquity. The same skills can be applied in many different contexts.