It is time!

I had lunch with dear Barb.  She wanted her summer student to meet me, learn about my career path, and my experiences at my Alma mater.  Barb was doing it all over again with the new girl in town :-) There she was, a tiny petite freshman girl in computer science and aerospace engineering, and Barb was telling her how I got all my degrees from her school.  I felt so old in front of her.  Also, I realized more than before how I did not have an adventurous career path until now that I was considering a couple of new opportunities.  The truth is I never got bored.  The projects and applications varied through out the years and I never stopped learning new things and growing within my position.  Barb reassured me the reason she has to change often is that she cannot "focus" on research and technical work the way I can; Otherwise, she would have loved to stay in one position.  Systems engineering matched her personality better.  Learning about all components and systems of a project and making sure they all work together well.

"Focus"!  Yeah, that is it!  There was a time I could focus.  Focus long and for many hours.  Code and solve problems tirelessly.  Now the right mood has to strike, and the right mood has to last long enough;  At least I still can focus at times;  I have a feeling these days are numbered.  I keep day dreaming, or just dreaming, dreaming big.  It is time for making big things happen and telling others how to make them happen.  I feel it is time for me to be a project manager, a leader, and not just a researcher and executor; Not because this is the time in my career I should do it, but because I feel it in my bones; I feel the energy and the need to do bigger things.  The time is right!