50 years filled

Yesterday I became 50 years old. In Swedish we say ”to fill year” – that’s why the headline for this blogpost is ”50 years filled”. I am actually impressed by me. Imagine that I have lived that long! All the thoughts I have thought, all the things I have done. All the knowledge and experience I have gathered!

All those young persons who are born into the digital world, yeah, right… Compare that with my 24 years experience from computers and 18 years experience from internet together with an open, curious and tech positive attitude!

I have contemplated over how it feels to become 50 year and then I found out that in my case it’s a feeling of growing from the inside and out. Like if that little small human seed that was me from the beginning has grew and filled out my costume so that I become better and better at being me. And if you think like that it becomes logical to talk about ”fill 50 year” like we do in Swedish.

In addition to that my life is getting better and better and maybe that’s because I become more of me all the time? Sometimes I contemplate over retirement at 65, the fact that a lot of people are looking forward to get retired and I wonder if I will do that too? Okay, there are days when I want to quit and think that I could be content with some money that get transferred to my bank account every month without any effort from me. But, isn’t retirement a symbol for how we at last will be able to take control of our lives and do what we like to do? If that’s the case I don’t think retiring is my thing. I rule myself. I am a freelancing consultant. I work with inspiring things. I get new kind of jobs all the time, so that I get stimulated by new challenges. What is that I would do that would be so much better if I retired?

The Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt talked in an interesting way about retirement age today. He suggested that people might want to make a career change after they’ve turned 50. Maybe they want to work until they get 75 in stead of 65? I am sure that a lot of people get very provoked by that, their thinking patterns are so tied to the model of first being employed and then get retired. As a freelancing, self-employed company owner I believe I think different. At least that’s how it feels when I talk to people who always have been employed. I have no model to work from, I have to build my own model. To me it feels weird to imagine that I would stop working when I turn into a certain age. That would be like stop breathing, stop thinking, stop living…

I have choose to work with stuff that I like and when I get bored, I look for new challenges. Life is about finding the right challenges if you ask me. I think I will keep on searching for the right challenges until I die.