Is it time for me to retire?
You are 60 years old and head a large laboratory with many exciting ongoing research projects and stable funding. Why would you consider retiring? This was my situation in 2017 when I was Chief of the Laboratory Sciences at the National Institute of Aging (NIA) Research Center in Baltimore. Despite the pleasures of working with lab members and collaborators, I was experiencing several recurring thoughts about science, society, and my family. First, the daily work towards and on research publications was becoming monotonous at times. Second, I was witnessing some graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and even junior investigators leaving science, and at the same time, the general public's trust in science was declining. There was also a data-driven reason for me to make room for younger scientists. Having spent more than 30 years studying brain aging, I was well aware that there is a progressive decline in brain performance - particularly processing speed, working memory, and creativity - that becomes evident in the fourth and fifth decades of life. Finally, I had spent 36 years devoting about 60 hours a week to research and had spent too little time with my family and had lost touch with the outside world.
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