It’s interesting how we progress through our careers thinking about age, and more generally in life, how we notice or don’t notice it. When we are very young, everyone is an adult, or an older person to us. When we are young adults (perhaps just finished schooling) and in our 20 somethings, we stop noticing age because the media and advertising are targeting us. We look like the age of people that we are presented with, and at this point we are the center of attention. Fellowships and new opportunities are targeted for us. We are filled with potential and promise, and we are continuing to step higher and higher. We are increasingly excited about our futures and we don’t feel like we’ve gotten to a point of stagnation. And this makes sense, because our entire lives we’ve been on this path of always knowing about a next step. You go through grade school, then high school, then college, then maybe some post college work or experience and then graduate school, and then your first job, and being promoted or excelling through your first job.
There is inevitably some point in our lives when we look around, and realize we aren’t the young whippersnappers anymore. Perhaps there is a fellowship or “early career” opportunity and we say “Oh, goodness, I’m too old.” Or we tell ourselves the same story after we compare ourselves with engineers ten years younger that have excitement about tasks we can no longer muster. We realize that we are starting to slow down, and we start to question if there is really an exiting next step for us. The world, in a way, is structured so that there is a sense of movement and change up through when we possibly start our first jobs, and then it stops. It’s especially hard for research software engineers that might not enter a new career path and see a long, interesting journey of growth before them. We start to look at the Quaker Oatmeal Logo and he looks younger to us every year. This can be a hugely depressing thought to have, because you might think the best parts of your life are over, or that there is no longer room to grow.
Of course there is no magical cure to stop aging, but there are things we can work on in ourselves and in our communities. The first is to realize that mindset is so much more important than age. Think about it! We’ve all met very young people that have an “old” vibe, and older folks with so much energy you can’t believe it. You are never too old to:
- Get excited about ideas and people
- Come up with a new initiative or goal
- Completely make a change in your life.
So a good way to combat this story of “I’m too old” is to instead focus on the ideas and areas we are passionate about, and also realize that there are some good things that come with age. We have more experience, and sometimes wisdom, and we can step into a different stage of our career that might be fun to try. And most importantly, we should always pursue what we care about and brush away that negative message. We can also take action on the level of our community. If we are in positions of power to hire people, or choose people for a panel, we can be aware that ageism is a real thing, and try to combat it. Evaluate a person for their ideas and not the number of wrinkles on their face. Choose to see wisdom and beauty in being older and not stagnation and tiredness. If we start to better support all ages in our community, we will undoubtably be stronger for it.