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"Why should I be scared? It's certainly not my first solo long-distance trip! I think it'll be a great adventure."

In my life, I have found absolutely no correlation-mathematical of otherwise-between age and "interesting-ness". I have, however, found a significant correlation between youth and inexperience, and misconceptions about other people. For all you young folks out there, you are in for a big surprise as you get older. You will find that if you're not interesting now, chances are you won't be in the future. If you have no imagination now, no passions about anything in your life (beyond so-called reality TV and a few computer games), you probably won't change much as you get older.

If, on the other hand, you're young, a bit daring, curious about your world, and passionate about learning or doing something cool, that won't change as you age either. The main advantage of getting older, if you're already interesting, is that you will care less about how others perceive your choices, your willingness to take a risk, and your ability to recover and do it again as soon as you possibly can.

What was my recent mistake? I retired from a really good job to move back to California where I was born and raised, and where I'd wanted to be for years. I went with my usual self-confidence, my good resume, a huge amount of optimism, and a great deal of excitement. My mistakes: not knowing the full story on the economic conditions at my destination; not understanding that the U.S. economy was well into what has been referred to as a downturn; and not knowing that being an educated and experienced person with gray hair would make me ineligible to obtain work. If there is a problem with getting older, it's that some of us forget that people will judge us superficially and not even find out what we want or need or can do. I learned only recently that most companies simply are not interested in hiring anybody over the age of 40, with 50 being the absolutely oldest employee they might consider in a dire emergency.

My solution (and yes, I've been planning my next adventure and escape more sensibly): I'll bide my time and build up my freelance business so I can take my job with me next time. And I will move again, as far west as I can go without risking forest fires, landslides, and years-long droughts. That eliminates California and most of the southwest. I'm thinking Wyoming.

I'll keep doing photography and digital art. I'm taking a course that will get me certified as a proofreader,

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