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Picking and Choosing

I turned 61 recently. As I am tentatively (health willing) planning to retire when I turn 70 I feel as if I am now officially in my last decade professionally.

The only reason I bring this up is that I find myself referring more openly in conversation to "when I retire" and "before I retire". This came up several times yesterday in different contexts so whether or not I am aware of it consciously it is on my mind.

Primarily with limited time (and it will fly by) I need to be selective about which opportunities I pursue in my career. The more senior I become the more challenges I am offered by colleagues and I can't take them all on.

I have a lot of organizational strengths and some leadership ability and that seems to be something that I really don't want to waste. Fortunately my professional association has provided me with more; I had been envisioning a time when I would no longer be chairing a committee for them and then I was asked to chair a newly-formed committee so I'll have that for a while.

I'm not bad as a teacher, at least of upper level mathematics. I've been blessed with department chairs who have supported me with these kinds of class assignments which I think has been a win-win.

I've been re-upped for another three-year term as Faculty Ombudsperson. I believe that I have been helping folk. Given the confidential nature of the work the metrics are inherently fuzzy. I don't know (it's unspecified) whether a third term is possible, desirable for me, or good for the university if I become staid. The second term means I don't throw away the experience I garnered in the first term but it's not clear to me that that holds in perpetuity.

Some of what I do I have done for decades, but a decent fraction I only took on in the past decade, which has helped keep the job fresh. I guess that would be the one thing to try and focus on in the time remaining, to not grow stale but to keep every aspect of what I do a challenge that is within my reach.

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