Agree on health. It’s important to bear in mind that health can suddenly go bad, which in turn means that you should make the most of the present rather than th

Agree on health. It’s important to bear in mind that health can suddenly go bad, which in turn means that you should make the most of the present rather than thinking “I can postpone doing X,Y,Z” until I’m older. My father died when he was 59 and had lifestyle-limiting illnesses for the last decade of his life. Bearing this in mind, I went down to a three-day working week aged 56 and then fully retired two years later. I’ve looked after my health but six months ago had an unpredicted episode of Ventricular Fibrillation for genetic rather than lifestyle reasons. I was fitted with an ICD and quickly got back to my physical health but under UK law had to surrender my driving license and I’m now stuck waiting for my application for a new one to work through our bureaucracy. On balance I wish I’d fully retired slightly earlier. Coming back to other points that are made here, I found in my last few years at work that the technology was ‘same-old same-old’ and that I found working with talented youngsters (sometimes as a formal mentor) the most rewarding part of my job. Perhaps I was just lucky, but I helped four younger people to go past me on the corporate ladder, and in turn they all looked out for me later on. I was also able to work in an environment where I was viewed as a principal customer-facing techie, rather than having to remain totally corporate. This in fact reduced my career-development options (as I was out on site with the customers rather than being highly visible to my bosses) but I viewed this as a positive.