I’ve had a week to think about this now, so here we go.
My 40th birthday went exactly as I had wanted it. I had a nice dinner celebration with family and friends, I gave a very short speech, and everyone had a good time. There was cake. The next day I played Shadowrun with friends, and the day after Jen and I went to Victoria and stayed at the Empress. We did In-Room Dining and Afternoon Tea.
It was absolutely awesome.
Now I have some time to reflect on what this next decade means for me. My 20s were characterized primarily by the search for a life partner, which I achieved when I married Jennifer in 2001, when I was 29. My 30s were all about searching for a career, for some place I could go work where I felt my talents were well utilized and I could make a difference. By the time I was 39, I felt I had achieved this. I had not only found a great company but created my own dream job within that company. This wasn’t easy to do by any means, but it happened, and it has given me great satisfaction.
So what’s next?
There are clearly things left to on a personal level, both at work and away from work. I’m working hard on the sequel to my first novel, and I’m still writing articles for Ars Technica, both things I did during my 30s. I have all sorts of new goals and projects at work. These things aren’t going away.
But if I had to define a long-term objective for this decade, it would be this: to create something new and deliver it to the public. Not a book, although I’m doing that as well. No, this is something much greater in scope, and something that I hope reaches a larger audience. I’m not quite ready yet to reveal what it is, but it is going to be awesome.
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