Staying Young at Any Age

At the age of 60 I was unemployed and broke because of a series of wrong decisions and other external factors that are not important. The why of the situation is not relevant but the solution to the problem is.

I am writing this article to give some hope to people that because of their age think life is all but over and no one cares what they know or think anymore. Read along and I will tell you a short story of how I proved to myself and others that age has nothing to do with the ability to preform your job and possibly do it better than a younger person could.

Because I was almost broke after a lifetime of hard work and 60 years old I had good reason to believe that I was never going to regain either useful employment or any stability in life again. I did know that I needed to do something soon, and that something meant I needed to become employed somewhere. I started with the local news papers and soon discovered that the opportunities were few, due in part by the hard economic times we were in, and of course the age factor. In all applications there is a clause that states that you can not be discriminated against for a number of reasons, one of which is age. The truth is that age discrimination is a fact of life and no clause will ever change this, but on the bright side a lot of employers are realizing that age can be a plus.

I decided to apply for anything and everything using the shotgun approach hoping to hit some target and take what I could get until I could find something better. This approach paid off and I became employed by a security company at just above minimum wage doing security patrol. Was this the job of a lifetime, of course not but believe it or not it was not the worst job I ever had, and it gave me the time to keep looking for something better. This job lasted for about one year and led me to another job that I found while working at the security job, and so it went for a couple of years. During this time i developed a resume and posted it on line at numerous job hunting sites, while looking at the same sites for leads to employment. To shorten the story some, I was finely contacted by an employment service with an opportunity to apply for a maintenance supervisor position at a local financial institution.

I was hired after only one interview as a contract employee with the possibility of future part time employment if I proved in ninety days that I was the person they needed. To be honest after some years of not working and using my brain I wasn't all that sure I could do the job, and had a lot of doubts about my ability. I finely came to the conclusion that if they thought I could do the job so did I and set about to learn what I needed to know in a hurry.

I will skip all the other steps that it took to get this position and be hired full time at a good salary with good benefits, but I did get the job and i work there today.

My point is that no matter the age, or level of ability , it is never impossible to succeed even when common sense tells you that it can't be done. When you do succeed at my age under the circumstances I was in and find that you still are capable of doing a good days work and gaining the respect of your younger counter parts, well then you feel younger than you are. In fact ,if you are holding your own, and even excelling at what you do, then are you not indeed younger?

I have discovered that the old saying "you are only as old as you want to be" is true and also using your mind and body keeps both of them functioning for who knows how long. Staying young and feeling young is really up to you. As long as you have reasonably good health and a (I can do it attitude) then who knows how long you can keep on doing what you want to do.

Retirement is not for me I tried it once and found it to be a sure road to the old folks home where you can sit and wait out your time. How long will I work, I really don't know but I plan on working till the day comes when I feel that I really am to old, which will probably be somewhere north of 90.