The Back Forty

I've often heard that life begins at forty.  It's been a few years since that time for me.  I was looking through the last twelve years of posts, and I realized that aging is one of those topics that seems to be of concern to me.  Several years ago, I started to realize that it was getting harder to keep up with the rigors of life.  I've had some false starts at a mid-life crisis in quite a few of my posts.  Maybe they were all real, and maybe they were just a prologue.

I think that the mid-life crisis hit for real last summer.  That's when I returned to some of my volunteer work, and really decided that it was time to work with foster kids.  A mid-life crisis comes at a point when one realizes that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind.  I think I've come to that realization a while ago, when I lost my career a few years back.

I've got my career back a while ago, and I also seem to be working through what I would characterize as my retirement job.  I guess a mid-life crisis can sometimes not be a bad thing.  It did make me realize what was really important and helped me focus on what I needed to accomplish.  Here's to the next forty!

See ya.

Advice From Myself

Sometimes you just have to stop and listen to yourself.  In all of the rants, er, blog posts that over the last several years, I realized that I have dispensed some good advice every now and then.  A few years ago, I said to never stop learning and to trust your instincts.  Of course, my wit seemed to be much sharper back in the day.

In the last couple of years, my priorities have really changed, but the advice seems to be universal.  I seem to be more driven by my work with the teenagers these days.  Applying my advice, I still have a lot of learning to do.  Instead of principles of marketing, it's all about the education system, scholarships, and grants.  I've got a lot of teenage challenges ahead, but I think I can start trusting my instincts a bit more.

See ya.