I recently gave a piece of advice to a friend as regards his career. He just turned 40 (or is about to turn 40), and the advice I
gave is relevant to that fact.
I am sharing herewith the advice
I gave him. But for the purpose of this article, and to protect his
privacy, I will refer to him with the pseudonym “Danny.”
-------
Dear Danny,
You are still very young.
Since you obtained your college degree in 1994, and since most people
obtain their college degrees when they are about 20, then you are right
now probably 40. On that note, please consider the following analysis:
** For the purpose of this analysis, let us set aside the first 20
years of your life, and let us focus only on your adult life which we
will assume started after you finished college and began working. Thus,
your adult life started in 1994, when you were (let us simply assume) 20
years old.
** The average life expectancy for men in the Philippines is 69.26 years (please see http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/life_expectancy_at_birth.html),
but since you have above average education, above average
health-consciousness, and basically above-average quality of life, let
us assume therefore that you will live to a ripe old age of “at least”
80.
** I am certain that you will stay sharp and lucid until the
day that you pass on, after all you are a very cerebral person – always
using and exercising your brain. Therefore I think we can safely assume
that you will be very intellectually productive, capable of doing
professional work (for instance, entrepreneurial work, or part-time
consultancy, or teaching, or all of the above), at the very least until
the age of 75.
** Thus, your total adult-professional life is
55 years (n.b., we arrive at 55 years by deducting 20 years old, the age
you finished college, from 75 years old, the earliest age that you will
retire).
** Please note therefore that since it has only been
20 years since you left college, in other words since it has only been
20 years that you have been working professionally, then you are NOT
EVEN HALFWAY YET as far as your 55 adult-professional years are
concerned, you basically have 35 years to go. This is a very important
consideration to keep in mind.
.jpg)
** Therefore, by all means, start
a new business. Pursue a new line of work that you have always wanted
to pursue. Enrol in a Masters program, or if you already have a
masterate then enrol in a PhD program, and thus if you obtain the degree
by the time you are 45 then you will still benefit from it for another
30 years. Pertinently, you can pursue new things without abandoning
your old/current occupation(s) which provide you with your stable
livelihood, in other words you can now afford to do new things out of
sheer passion because you can already afford it.
** Keep in
mind that in the 20 years that you have been working as a professional,
you have already achieved a lot and come a long way. Therefore just
imagine what you can achieve with another 30+ years.
** Keep
in mind as well that when you started your first 20 years, you were just
a kid, a real amateur. But in starting your next 30+ years, you are
already intellectually mature and professionally capable. Thus if you
have achieved so much during the first 20 years, then there is no reason
to doubt that you will achieve even greater things in the next 30.
It is not at all too late, not by any stretch of one’s imagination.
Okay?
Best Regards and God Bless,
Kuya Francis
-------
P.S. Incidentally, please note that I did not borrow the foregoing
ideas from anyone, I came up with all of them by myself, and someday
will include them in my own book. For copyright purposes I should not
yet be sharing them with anyone, but in this particular case I am willing to err on the side of generosity.
==============
Recommended Further Reading:
• Think You're Too Old to Be An Entrepreneur? Think Again.
• Encore Careers for the Rest of Us
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/02/15/encore-careers-for-the-rest-of-us/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2013/02/15/encore-careers-for-the-rest-of-us/
• Encore Careers in Religion
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581254/Older-Americans-getting-religion-for-second-careers.html
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865581254/Older-Americans-getting-religion-for-second-careers.html
