www.nickhodge.com

On Janu­ary 6^th this year, I had a small per­sonal cel­eb­ra­tion: my twen­ti­eth (20^th) year of full-time work. Whilst I am at my third employer, I’ve never had more than a day between jobs. (www.linkedin.com Pro­file: Nick Hodge) The longest hol­i­day I’ve had in last 20 years has been the month the Hodge fam­ily went to Europe (70 Days, 7 Coun­tries). Apart from that refresh, its been a week or two here and there.

Here I am, in my late thirties. A poten­tially jeop­ard­ous time for men. They do silly things like buy fast red sports cars (Scar­lett Comes out in Style). The body doesn’t look, feel and work the same old way. And they start to look ahead a little, and drive a little slower.

We are all bound by the decisions we make: what cars we drive, what houses to buy; what job to do; and fur­ther bound by expect­a­tions: what do people expect from me? Why do I have to get up every morn­ing and go to work? It leads a dif­fi­cult decision: “Can I get off this merry-go-round?”.

After weigh­ing up these conun­drums, I’ve decided to spend the next 5–6 months “reboot­ing”, “reset­ing” and “reload­ing”, pre­papring for the next 20 years. Slow down, smell the roses. Look back and look ahead. Read some books, learn some new things. Return to Adobe in a dif­fer­ent role. Calm down and get stuff done that mat­ters. And as Carl Sagan said to his stu­dents: “Do Some­thing” (Carl Sagan)

After a busy, full and fun 20 years — that “some­thing” remains equally as eth­er­eal, but I’ll be ready to tackle it head on.