“No one knows this yet.”
She said it just before the waiter arrived. I’ve known her for over 15 years. We met early in our consulting days, and I’ve followed her career ever since. From the outside, she seemed to be doing great.
“I’m thinking about my next steps,” she said. “What I could do next.”
“Really? I’ve watched your career. It all looks very solid.”
“Yeah, yeah, no. All is good. There’s no need to do anything. I’m just thinking about where I can achieve the most while I still learn. And do something I believe in.”
We ordered. I looked down at the menu and stopped reading.
This was the third time in a few weeks I’d heard something like this. Three people who don’t know each other had described their motivation in different ways, but the feeling behind their words was the same.
In the next two weeks, I heard it two more times.
When friends share something in confidence, I keep it private. You won’t see any names, companies, or details here that could identify anyone.
Five people, one question
They were strong students who landed top jobs right out of university, mostly at big strategy firms. That’s how I met most of them. Over the next 20 years, some climbed the corporate ladder while others started their own companies.
None of them are in trouble. They could stay on the same path until retirement, and it would work.
None of them want to retire, either, and that surprised me most. Plenty of stories online are about people at 55 or 60 who have made their money and are planning an active retirement. But these five are still building and still have financial goals. They’re asking these questions while they’re still in the middle of their careers.
Most of us are Generation X. I always thought our deal was simple: keep your head down, build your credentials, and do the work, even when it isn’t exciting, because it pays off later. Purpose and passion were in the background, and no one asked if they should take the lead.
Now, twenty years later, they’re asking these questions. Each one does it quietly, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about.
A psychologist wrote it down in 1968
In all five conversations, some version of the same thought came up: How many more years do I want to keep doing this? How do I want to spend them? They had started counting backwards.
Bernice Neugarten, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, described it in 1968. She wrote: “Life is restructured in terms of time-left-to-live rather than time-since-birth.” She called the awareness that time is finite “a particularly conspicuous feature of middle age.” [1]
Five people, each in their own words, described what a researcher wrote down 58 years ago. Is this just a coincidence, a sign of the times, or simply our age?
From my perspective as a doctor, I think age is the main factor here. I haven’t found any strong data showing that people in their forties ask this question more now than they did ten years ago. This question has come up at this stage of life for almost 60 years, and my friends and I just reached it together. If you’re asking it, you’re right on time.
Counting backwards tells you one thing: your sense of how much time you have left has changed. Age can do that, but so can a health issue or an uncertain future. Try to figure out what changed for you before you answer the career question.
The world around us has changed. Based on a survey of employers, the World Economic Forum projects that 92 million jobs will disappear and 170 million new ones will be created by 2030. [2] Headlines like that make the future feel less certain. Even the people building AI can’t agree on whether we’ll have more or less work. In my parents’ time, doctors, lawyers, and managers could predict what the next few decades would look like. That’s not true anymore. Now, people talk about having portfolio careers and multiple sources of income. One job doesn’t feel as safe as it used to, and I think about that too.
Why the brain starts counting
Laura Carstensen at Stanford has spent decades studying what happens when people feel their time is limited. Her theory, called socioemotional selectivity, has a simple idea at its core. When time feels unlimited, we focus on gathering knowledge, contacts, options, and status. When time feels short, we focus on what matters most emotionally. [3]
This shift depends on how much time you think you have, no matter your age. Midlife is when the horizon often starts to feel closer.
Older adults usually prefer to spend time with people they know well. When researchers asked them to imagine a medical advance that added 20 years to their lives, that preference disappeared. [4] In Hong Kong, two months before the 1997 handover to China, when the city’s future suddenly looked uncertain, young adults made the same choices as older adults. One year after the handover, the age difference was back. [4] Illness moves the horizon too. Carstensen’s team saw the same shift in young men living with HIV. Their conclusion: “the perception of limited time, rather than chronological age, is the critical variable.” [5]
None of these studies looked at careers. Counting backwards is the same shift, applied to work. When the horizon moves closer, you start sorting your time by what matters to you. The AI headlines move that horizon for a lot of us, the way the handover moved it for those young adults in Hong Kong.
The back that started it
For me, it started with my back.
I know what pain feels like. I wrestled for 20 years, with more than ten of those years spent competing. Full-contact sports teach you about all kinds of pain. A bone hurts one way, a torn muscle another, and a shoulder about to pop out gives its own warning.
So when my back gave out, I knew this pain was different. It felt deeper than anything I’d experienced on the mat. As a doctor, I understood the anatomy, but I sensed this was about more than just the body.
My lowest point came in the summer of 2024. I was sitting on the terrace of our holiday home, on one of the big concrete steps leading down to the lawn. The sun was setting in front of me, turning the sky a deep orange you seem only to see near the sea. The windows behind me were open. My wife was getting the kids ready for bed, and the usual chaos had started. Karla was yelling about something, Magnus was running laps to burn off his last bit of energy, and Tilda was trying to find a room without the other two in it.
I sat on the step, looked at the lawn and trees, and started asking myself questions I’d avoided since my twenties. What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Who am I still trying to impress? Is it just about the money?
That was when I started counting backwards.
Take away the business class
Once I started asking these questions, I stripped away everything that comes with a senior job: the borrowed status of a company name, the title, the business-class seat, the nice hotels, the expensive dinners, and the way people treat you when you walk into a room. Over the years, all of that had become part of how I saw myself.
Then I wondered what would be left. What would I do if I could really choose? Building, helping, learning, creating: which one brings me the most satisfaction? How much of what I do is shaped by what others think? How much is about earning easy, safe money compared to facing an uncertain future?
And there was one question I couldn’t let go: in two or three generations, no one will remember my name. So why am I putting so much into something that won’t matter after I’m gone?
It took me a while to answer it.
Capacity is the part of my Upward ARC framework I think about most right now. It’s about what you can still learn, the skills you build, and the reserves your mind and body carry into later life. My friend at lunch put it simply: she wants to keep learning. Capacity is what makes that possible.
Why nobody says it out loud
Five people, the same question. Each told me in confidence and seemed to think they were the only one feeling this way. Some of that silence is just being careful. Usually, no one wants to share career doubts with colleagues.
Psychologists call this pluralistic ignorance. Most people in a group privately feel one way, and each of them assumes everyone else feels the opposite. I have seen this unfold in many leadership trainings I took part in. In the closing round, participants often named it their biggest takeaway.
Boards show it clearly, too. When companies performed poorly, outside directors underestimated how many of their fellow directors shared their doubts about the strategy. The doubts stayed unspoken, and the strategy stayed the same. [6]
I think the same thing happens with this question. Everyone at the table is wondering about it, but each person assumes everyone else is confident.
The word “crisis” makes things harder. Nobody wants to be seen as having a midlife crisis. In a US study of 724 adults, 26% said they’d had one, using the word for many experiences like divorce, career setbacks, and illness. Among people aged 49 to 53, 44% described a crisis involving physical decline, changing priorities, blocked achievement, and “shortened futures.” Another 16% felt trapped in an unsatisfying job and wanted to change careers “before it was too late.” The numbers in that age group were small, to be transparent. [7] My friends are calm, successful, and grateful. They want to choose their next steps on purpose.
Wanting to change, and staying
A German study followed 2,835 workers born in 1959 or 1965 over four years. One in ten changed profession. Another 17.6% wanted to change but didn’t. Most of that group wanted better conditions or less conflict between work and family, and they had worse mental health than the people who were content to stay. [8] The study can’t show which came first.
Work shows up in the body, too. A 1991 study followed 3,020 aircraft-industry workers for just over four years. Those who “hardly ever” enjoyed their job tasks were 2.5 times more likely to report a back injury than those who “almost always” did. [9] Those were very different jobs from ours, but I’ve stopped seeing my back and my work as separate issues.
Purpose affects health too. A 2026 meta-analysis of nearly 490,000 people found that having more purpose was linked to about a 15% lower risk of dying during follow-up, even after accounting for health habits and existing disease. [10] This is observational, and here, purpose means purpose in life. It doesn’t have to come from your job.
The honeymoon problem
Before you hand in your notice, consider what happens after a job change. Researchers found that when managers changed jobs voluntarily, their satisfaction rose at first, then fell back down. They called this the honeymoon-hangover effect. [11] The study didn’t look at moves into more meaningful work, and I don’t know of any good research showing which kind of change is best. Just changing your job title or company isn’t enough by itself, though.
As a doctor, here’s my take: chasing your passion while your family is worried about school fees isn’t a good idea. I wouldn’t do it, and I won’t recommend it. I have three kids in school, with university still ahead. Any answer to this question has to cover the household first. My friends are still building too, and we’re lucky to be asking this with some savings. Many people asking these questions have much less room to maneuver. So I plan for both: the household and whatever comes next.
And make sure you’re counting the right years. In Germany, the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy was 10.8 years in 2019. [12] This gap spans a lifetime, so you can’t just subtract it from your next 20 years. But it’s a reminder that years and healthy years aren’t the same. Cardio fitness, strength, and sleep can help you make the most of the years you have.
Try this today
The backwards count. Take a sheet of paper and write down your age, the age you’d like to stop working full time, and the years in between. Then list two or three things your body needs to do well during those years, like carrying your bags through an airport or climbing four flights of stairs without stopping. Pick the one you’re least sure about and start working on it this week.
The five-year test. Carstensen’s research shows that having a shorter time horizon changes your priorities, so try shortening it on purpose. Write down what you’d do if you had only five working years left, then what you’d do if you had 20. The difference can show you what you might be putting off. This is just a thinking exercise. No one has tested it as a formal method.
The small test. Before making any big changes, run a small experiment in the direction you’re interested in. Have coffee with someone already doing that work or take on a side project. In my experience, a month of trying teaches you more than a year of thinking.
Tell one person. Pluralistic ignorance starts to fade when someone speaks up. Choose a peer you trust this week and share what you’ve been thinking. I bet they’ve been thinking about it too.
Put a number on your fear. When money worries are vague, they block every option. Figure out what your household and your kids’ schooling will need for the next five years. Once you have a number, you can make a plan.
What I’d tell her
At that lunch, I ordered a large portion with extra chicken because I had a protein goal to hit. Some habits don’t need a midlife review. We had a quick coffee afterward, and I thought about our conversation the entire bike ride home.
If I could sit down with her again, I’d tell her she’s right on schedule, and that it’s okay for this question to take center stage for a while. The thing she might have seen as a private flaw was something four other people were carrying too.
And I’d share what I realized after that evening on the terrace: my name will fade, but the work can last beyond me. Someone who can smile again. Something I built that still works.
What’s the question you haven’t said out loud yet? Feel free to reply. I read every message.
Stay healthy.
Andre
PS: If you know someone who’s doing well but quietly wondering what comes next, please forward this to them. They’ll understand why you sent it. That’s how this newsletter grows, and it’s the only way I want it to.
PPS: If a friend sent you this, you can subscribe to The Upward ARC at andreheeg.com.
References
[1] Neugarten, B. L. (1968). The awareness of middle age. In B. L. Neugarten (Ed.), Middle age and aging: A reader in social psychology (pp. 93–98). University of Chicago Press.
[2] World Economic Forum. (2025). The future of jobs report 2025. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/
[3] Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist, 54(3), 165–181. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.3.165
[4] Fung, H. H., Carstensen, L. L., & Lutz, A. M. (1999). Influence of time on social preferences: Implications for life-span development. Psychology and Aging, 14(4), 595–604. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.14.4.595
[5] Carstensen, L. L., & Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). Influence of HIV status and age on cognitive representations of others. Health Psychology, 17(6), 494–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.17.6.494
[6] Westphal, J. D., & Bednar, M. K. (2005). Pluralistic ignorance in corporate boards and firms’ strategic persistence in response to low firm performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(2), 262–298. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.2.262
[7] Wethington, E. (2000). Expecting stress: Americans and the “midlife crisis.” Motivation and Emotion, 24(2), 85–103. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005611230993
[8] Garthe, N., & Hasselhorn, H. M. (2022). Changes of profession, employer and work tasks in later working life: An empirical overview of staying and leaving. Ageing & Society, 42(10), 2393–2413. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0144686X21000088
[9] Bigos, S. J., Battié, M. C., Spengler, D. M., Fisher, L. D., Fordyce, W. E., Hansson, T. H., Nachemson, A. L., & Wortley, M. D. (1991). A prospective study of work perceptions and psychosocial factors affecting the report of back injury. Spine, 16(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1097/00007632-199101000-00001
[10] Sutin, A. R., Zavala, D., Milad, E., Stephan, Y., Karakose, S., Brown, J., Terracciano, A., & Luchetti, M. (2026). Purpose in life and mortality: A meta-analysis of the published literature and individual-participant data of 488,765 participants followed for up to 32 years. Psychological Medicine, 56, e214. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291726104863
[11] Boswell, W. R., Boudreau, J. W., & Tichy, J. (2005). The relationship between employee job change and job satisfaction: The honeymoon-hangover effect. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 882–892. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.5.882
[12] Garmany, A., & Terzic, A. (2024). Global healthspan-lifespan gaps among 183 World Health Organization member states. JAMA Network Open, 7(12), e2450241. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.50241