The ugly reality is that you are "unwanted" after 40s. Your income is way above the US National median income. You are sitting over a time bomb. Your organization just tolerates you somehow. You are an expensive overhead for them specially if you haven't kept pace with the latest technology landscape of AI, data science, cloud computing, block chain, machine learning and big data. Worst part is even if you agree to work for less they won't hire you; they want to maintain the median age & HR pyramid.
In a nutshell you are a waste, a useless tissue paper after the 40s, chances are that in your personal life also you are not doing that great, you are either going through a severe mid life crisis fantasizing or repenting about your youth or you are going through a divorce. You are going downhill, craving for opposite sex attention. You are constantly bogged down by your slightly younger friends who are posting their pictures with exotic locales on facebook and their superb professional achievements on LinkedIn. You think about quitting all the social media channels. Its robbing you off your mental peace.
Unless you bring a strong value proposition to the table; a turn around specialist, a game changer with high revenue & turnover history, a high performer as Satya Nadella or the likes, its literally the retirement age in the software world and its curtains for you.
What to do now : Is it the end of the road?
The best thing to do as an SOS is to bring down your salary to National Median income. Lets say if you decide to become a teacher, you will have zero threat and fears & lesser competition for your salary. Initially you will feel terribly humiliated & depressed to drop yourself from the peak of your career to a trough. All that time, when you were so much in control, much ahead of your peers, luck was by your side, all those long term deputations abroad will haunt you.
Even the universities or the school will grill you for such a dramatic change in the career path with no academic experience. The people around you, the small town atmosphere, non corporate, blue collar everything. You will have to shun your extravagant lifestyle; the only silver lining will be that your painful tax outgo will drastically reduce & you will have the "free time" to experiment with how you can turn your passion into a living (for example blogging, writing & training) & get set on the path of entrepreneur-ism.
Life is not worth learning multitude of skills all at the same time; languages, architecture, program management, processes, delivery, people and all that BS and the irony is that even after that & so much experience you have to sell yourself to companies to go back to rat race and lick boots of your bosses. Moreover none of those people are going to be at your side when you are in crisis.
So I would rather be a freelancer, a trainer, a professor, entrepreneur or if nothing I could wait tables at a restaurant, or become an admin in a university or take up farming and live way below my means & pursue my passion all day, all night long after 40s.
This is what the essence of life is "Change". Things change, seasons change, time change, people change and everything changes. This is what humanity is all about. Fight, struggle, adjust to change & hope for betterment. Those who remain in comfort zone are left behind.
It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of the species that survive, but the ones who are most adaptable to "change" that survive.
Source: quora.com
