On turning 70

I am the oldest in our family; Paul is three years, Susan eight years, and Joy ten years younger. I am also the oldest grandchild on my mother's side. So, in ways I have always had an "older" position or mind set. But yet on my father's side there were four grandchildren older than I, so I had a different position in that group.

I graduated from high school at age 16 (I turned 17 two months later) because I had skipped the 8th grade. That meant I was younger than everyone in my high school class. I struggled in my early years at university and so my education got stretched out. During the last two years before graduation I was among the oldest in my class, if not the oldest.

During my working career I was obviously in a mix of ages, some younger, some older, until the last few years of my career when I had moved into the older group.

But changes in my working life over the last few years have brought a different feeling about myself and my relationship with my job. I retired in 2006 but returned to engineering work last October on a part time basis to supplement our retirement income. One of the major differences I noted in myself is what goals I had at work. All my career I was fairly driven to "succeed" and "get ahead". This was directed both at my own personal situation as well as my employer's; I was driven to help my team and my company succeed and grow.

But upon returning to work I realized that for the first time I had no personal goals to achieve. Yes, I am still driven to help my employer succeed and grow but I have no personal need to "take charge". I would rather be a resource to the younger staff who are in a career growth mode.

As the older one in the office I have obviously had more years of experience and have had the opportunity to work on more projects and solve more problems in a wide variety of situations. I have enjoyed being the "sage" if you will - the one others turn to for information, suggestions, or advice whether on technical matters or career issues. I have to watch myself, however, that I don't get into a habit of saying something like "in the old days" and wandering off into long stories about times in my career, kind of like the old warrior warming himself by fireside and waiting for someone to come along so he can live again in the glory of his youth.

I have always been the one who, when someone came to me with some problem they could not find a solution to, could come up with five or six things to try. But now I have to try to avoid the reminiscing and wandering in my mind about times past and challenging problems solved.

So, I guess I realize that with age comes a greater sense of past than future. For sure, at 70 there are far more years behind me than ahead of me.

But, does that mean that I have given up on all "future" and striving to grow? No. Not by any means.

My real "working" joy comes from my web development work. I love trying to learn new things, solve new problems, find new ways to make things work better. Being in "retirement" sort of removes the need to make a lot of money at what I am doing. Yes, my web development business is still a business and I want to augment retirement income with it. But I don't have to worry about meeting payroll or feeding my family from my efforts. But I guess that is not so much a factor of age as of circumstance.

As I mentioned, in the months leading up to my 70th birthday I was feeling a sense of anticipation. But now that the day has come and gone that sense is no longer there. It's just another day time again! Not that life is dull; life is just not the anticipation but is  more the satisfaction of being and living and loving.

Life is good at 70!