What is your career plan?

People ask this question as if life comes with a neat little ordnance survey map.

Five-year plan.
Ten-year projection.
Colour-coded ambition.
A LinkedIn post with a sunrise photo and the words “grind now, shine later.”

But if there’s one thing fifty years on this spinning blue green space marble has taught me, it’s this:

Life rarely sticks to the plan.

And honestly?
I’m alright with that now.

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The 9–5 Plan? Retirement.

Simple as that.

Not because I hate work.
Not because I’ve suddenly developed dreams of becoming one of those people who drinks wine at noon and talks about property prices.

But because after decades of alarms, routines, deadlines, and dragging yourself through days even when your head or body isn’t entirely on board…

You start to realise peace has value too.

At fifty, my career plan for the day job is retirement somewhere on the horizon.
Not a dramatic exit.
No fireworks.
No emotional farewell montage.

Just quietly stepping away from the grind and finally exhaling properly.

I think there comes a point where you stop measuring success by productivity and start measuring it by time.

Time to think.
Time to breathe.
Time to notice things again.

And I’d quite like a bit more of that.

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But Here’s The Important Part…

Retirement isn’t the end of anything for me.

It’s the beginning of focusing on the things that actually make me feel alive.

The scribbles.
The photography.
The side hustle that never really felt like work in the first place.

Poetry has been with me for over twenty years now — helping me process the noise in my head, the chaos of life, and all the things that are easier written than spoken. 

And photography?

That’s become another way of slowing the world down long enough to really see it.

A bird balanced on a branch.
Morning light through the trees.
A face caught in an honest moment.

Tiny fragments of life most people rush straight past.

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So What’s The Plan?

The plan is simple.

Work less.
Create more.

I want the poetry and photography to become the thing I pour myself into once the 9–5 finally fades into the background.

Not because I’m chasing fame.
Not because I expect to become some millionaire artist living in a converted lighthouse drinking artisanal coffee.

But because creativity gives me purpose.

And purpose matters.

Especially as you get older.

I don’t think people talk enough about that part of retirement — the need to still be something beyond your former job title.

Some people garden.
Some travel.
Some spend their days playing bowls, or bingo in the village hall.

Me?

I’ll probably still be scribbling in notebooks and crouching awkwardly in bushes trying to photograph birds that absolutely refuse to stay still long enough for a decent shot.

And honestly…
that sounds pretty perfect to me.

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Success Looks Different Now

When I was younger, career plans sounded bigger.

More ambitious.
More impressive.

Now?

Success looks quieter.

A peaceful morning.
A camera in hand.
Words flowing onto a page.
Enough time to enjoy the people I love.
Enough headspace to appreciate ordinary days.

That’s the goal.

Not endless hustle.
Not climbing another ladder just to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.

Just a life with a little more meaning…
and a little less noise.

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So what’s my career plan?

Retire from the job.

Lean fully into the art.

Keep writing.
Keep photographing.
Keep finding beauty in ordinary moments.

And if I’m lucky…

Spend the next chapter of life doing the things that made surviving the earlier chapters worthwhile.

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Stay safe

Bc