I've sometimes thought about this in terms of being in the military, or what it would take for being involved in one of the "TLAs" - so to speak. At 45+ years

I've sometimes thought about this in terms of being in the military, or what it would take for being involved in one of the "TLAs" - so to speak. At 45+ years of age, all of those doors are permanently closed to me. I do think that my thinking on them all is more that of the "romantic notions" of those careers; the reality of them is probably nowhere near as exciting, adventurous, or maybe even as worthwhile, as I might imagine them to have potentially been.