Not too late

Posted August 3rd, 2009

One of my friends was let go from a very stable job in a very stable industry a few months ago at age fifty.

I was initially more worried about his future than he is. The work he's done for the last twenty-some years has required large labs and teams of scientists. These aren't the kinds of things he can do on his laptop while sitting on his living room couch.

He's looking at this as an opportunity and he is optimistic in a way that I find both realistic and infectious. There is so much that he can do if he thinks more broadly about his skills and his experience.

What about you? If you lost your job today, what might you try next? What if you didn't lose your job, would you still try it? Sure, I don't know you or your job, but it may be a lot less secure than you think.

There's a lot of fuss now about Julia Child. There is a lot of attention surrounding "Julie and Julia" the movie about Julia Child and about a woman who decided to cook every recipe in Julia's classic book on French Cooking.

But earlier there was the revelation that Julia Child was gathering information for the U.S. while in France. This shouldn't be surprising as she had been a volunteer for the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) since just before her thirtieth birthday. This is how she met her husband and greatest fan and supporter while in China well into her thirties.

I love that Julia was willing to make dramatic shifts in her life later than most. "The Art Of French Cooking", the book Julia co-wrote with Simone Beck and Louisette Berthole was published in 1961 just before Julia Child's fiftieth birthday. 

I still find that astounding. We know Julia mostly today from her television shows but her first t.v. show, "The French Chef" didn't appear until she was fifty years old.

What is it you've been preparing to do all of your life? In this remaining month of summer, set aside some time to work on it a bit. Play with it and see where it goes. Julia Child didn't begin to study cooking until she was almost forty years old and she put in nearly a dozen years before her classic book was released. 

As important as that book was, she also inspired many cooks and launched the careers of countless chefs through her work on television. Work she didn't begin until the age at which many people are coasting towards an imaginary finish line. 

This post originally appeared in the Pragmatic Life blog.