Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think

The Atlantic ^ | July 2019 Issue | Arthur C. Brooks

[Galatians328]

I work like a maniac. But even if I stayed at it 12 hours a day, seven days a week, at some point my career would slow and stop. And when it did, what then? Would I one day be looking back wistfully and wishing I were dead? Was there anything I could do, starting now, to give myself a shot at avoiding misery—and maybe even achieve happiness—when the music inevitably stops?

[discostu]

I’ve never had that much of my sense of self worth tied to my job. I do it, I’m good at it, I go home.

[jimtorr]

I can build anything I want without a building permit in this county

You lucky duck. In my county in Oregon, when you submit a building permit application, you must put down a $750 application fee. Nonrefundable.

On the bright side, code enforcement people say that they look the other way unless they are forced to look at something.

An example: My sister and family built their dream house on top of their hill. They got the needed permits, and an inspector came out. He took one look at the old house on the property and said he knew that house never had a septic tank permit. It backed onto a swale which is the headwaters of a stream leading into the nearest towns water supply.

[alexander_busek]

I’m 22 chapters into my first book.

When you're done with that one, I have another one you might like to read.

Regards,

[litehaus]

Who expects a really old guy to kill you with his jellocup?

Someone who bought a “LAZ 50 cal Special”???

[econjack]

Exactly! I’ve always enjoyed writing (they’re “techie stuff”, so not of interest to everyone) and continued to do so after retirement. My first books were on computer programming, even though my Ph.D. is in Economics—long story. My hobby is amateur radio, which I’ve reignited after retirement. So, my last two books combined those two areas and have done surprisingly well. Now I’m writing another one and it makes me look forward to each day. Turns out...I’m really good at retirement and happy, too!

[Agatsu77]

Get a hobby. Travel. Start thinking now about what you WANT to do rather than “how bad can it get”.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Its all good. A body in motion stays in motion.😊

[Georgia Girl 2]

Correction I'm 22 chapters into writing my first book.😊

[Lurkinanloomin]

I got lucky when the Chines bought GE Appliances and I was able to take my pension early.
I now work 3 days a week at a gun store.
Out of the rat race and loving it.

[Billthedrill]

For those of us blessed by modern medicine with the expectation of a life longer than our predecessors, the answer may be as simple as Retire And Then Do Something Else. It seems to be working for me.

Still, I'm minded of one of Neil Peart's best lyrics:

The writer stares with glassy eyes
Defies the empty page
His beard is white, his face is lined
And streaked with tears of rage
Thirty years ago, how the words would flow
With passion and precision
But now his mind is dark and dulled
By sickness and indecision

And he stares out the kitchen door
Where the sun will rise no more

Sadder still to watch it die
Than never to have known it
For you, the blind who once could see
The bell tolls for thee, bell tolls for thee...

He's my age, it turns out. Says he's retired. Last I heard he was still pretty damn good.

[cuban leaf]

HAHAHA! I’m thinking of building a “bigger” house on my other knob, but there is an awesome natural well at the base of the hill, and I’m a bit concerned about a septic system ruining that. I’m toying with going for a cistern, but not sure.

BTW, totally related - watch the movie “Still Mine” some time. Great laid back movie about building permits.

[Dr. Sivana]

“Unhappy is he who depends on success to be happy,” Alex Dias Ribeiro, a former Formula 1 race-car driver, once wrote. “For such a person, the end of a successful career is the end of the line. His destiny is to die of bitterness or to search for more success in other careers and to go on living from success to success until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be life after success.”

As I read the article, I couldn't help but think of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Del Shannon, who had continual boughts of depression and finally took his own life at the age of 61, right before his final album was due to come out.

He hit a huge with "Runaway" in 1961, at the age of 26, and never could quite match that initial success. Even his last album's release for a single was a tune called "Walkaway".

Similarly, Danny of Danny and the Juniors (At the Hop, Rock 'n' Roll is Here to Stay). I imagined him, a talented guitarist who hit big early, performing to shrinking, aging audiences who just wanted to hear "At the Hop".

[dfwgator]

[mistfree]

“I turn 66 early next year and will take full SS while continuing to work”

Unless you are unhealthy i.e. you expect to die young, don’t start taking your SS until you are 70. The increase in payments far outweigh the missed checks between 66 and 70. Unless like I said you expect to die young. Additionally, you will be paying income tax on it at a very high rate because you still have your regular paycheck coming in. I just turned 68 and I’m waiting till I’m 70 to start collecting. A little more comfortable when I’ve retired and a hedge against inflation. Best of luck to you.

[Dr. Sivana]

There are some well known exceptions to the early decline rule. The writer Rex Stout didn’t create Nero Wolfe until well into his 40s, and the stories remained solid until the last few years when Stout was in his ‘80s. Colonel Sanders didn’t hit it big with Kentucky Fried Chicken until he was well into his ‘60s.

[cuban leaf]

I don’t expect it to be around when I’m 70.

It’s one of those “A bird in the hand” sort of things to me.

I confess that I might wait a bit longer, but if Trump loses in 2020, I’ll start before January of 2021 at the latest.

To say I don’t trust the FedGov would be a gross understatement. The only reason they are not as physically ruthless as the old USSR, IMO, is that they have found much better ways to get people to comply without the cost of Gulags.

The core of my retirement solution was to move to rural, central KY where my cost of living will be almost zero, including RE taxes, for the forseeable future. The key is to pay off my mortgage as soon as possible, hence the age 66 move on SS.

And if it gets so bad, inflation-wise, that I’m not earning enough to live here, I figure things will be so screwed up in this nation that that will be the least of my problems. I’ve had that attitude since 1970. My high school buddies used to ask questions like, “what if the government refuses to honor your US savings bonds?” I told them that if we live in such a world, that will be the least of their problems.

[cuban leaf]

BTW, my parents are both in their 90’s and not only live at home, but my dad still cuts his own firewood. So, unless I die in a fiery crash (which my wife says is entirely possible) I may be around a while.

The good news is that there are a lot of things I can do for money if push comes to shove.

[Uncle Miltie]

I burned out at 57, a full decade later than everyone else in my sector of the tech industry.

I’m having a good time. Exercising like a mad man, taking care of the house and Mom. Every chore is done every day. Gardening, photography, range time, fishing, chopping wood, boxing, reading, friends, family, etc.

Might be time to go pick up some work for fun.

[mistfree]

God Bless your parents!
Best of Luck in KY, I have a daughter north of Louisville, she loves it.

[Mr. Jeeves]

A potential answer lies in the work of the British psychologist Raymond Cattell, who in the early 1940s introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Cattell defined fluid intelligence as the ability to reason, analyze, and solve novel problems—what we commonly think of as raw intellectual horsepower. Innovators typically have an abundance of fluid intelligence. It is highest relatively early in adulthood and diminishes starting in one’s 30s and 40s. This is why tech entrepreneurs, for instance, do so well so early, and why older people have a much harder time innovating.

Companies with large tech-oriented workforces are well aware of this - and address it in ways that tend to be criticized as age discrimination.