The Truth About Age and Finding Yourself: Generational Perspectives on Purpose and Career

A couple of days ago, I saw this quote that was supposedly by David Bowie that said “Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” It reminded me of many conversations about age and finding yourself that I have been having over the past few months. 

Let me start by asking you something. When do you think people actually find themselves? Like, truly find themselves, the version of themselves that feels real and aligned and not like they're just performing a role someone else wrote for them?

Is it in your 20s, when you're fresh out of school and full of energy and everything feels wide open? Is it in your 30s, when you've collected enough life experience to know what you don't want? Or is it later, 40s, 50s, or even beyond when you've finally stopped caring quite so much about what everyone else thinks?

The honest answer? It's different for everyone. And I think the more important question isn't when, it's whether you give yourself permission to actually do it.

Today we're talking about age, generations, and the very loaded question of finding your calling. Because there's a lot of noise out there, generational blame, comparison, the sense that you're either too young to know better or too old to start over. And I want to cut through all of that.

The Generational Divide (That's As Old As Time)

Okay, I have to start here because I have been hearing this constantly for the past few years. Boomers and Gen X, and honestly now even some Millennials, complaining about Gen Z. They're lazy. They're entitled. They're unemployable. And Gen Z, for their part, thinks the older generations are stuck in their ways and out of touch.

But this isn’t something new. Comparing yourself to the next generation or looking down at them is as old as generations themselves. Every older generation has complained about the younger one since the beginning of time. So let's just acknowledge that this is basically a human tradition and move on.

Because here's what I actually believe: every generation brings something valuable to the table. Not one is better than the other. When times change (and they always do) different generations simply adapt to the world they were handed. That's not laziness or entitlement. That's intelligence.

I'm at the tail end of Gen X, right on the cusp of Millennial, sometimes called a Xillenial, and I genuinely resonate with both these generations. My parents are Boomers. They didn’t grow up with a lot of money, both from families of six or seven people crammed into tiny apartments where money was scarce. For their parents, finding ANY job was the goal. Just a job. So when it was my parents' turn, stability meant not poverty. You picked a lane, you stayed in it, and you were grateful.

I completely understand that. And I say that because I want to be fair here, it's easy to judge a generation's values without understanding the context that created them.

I remember the sigh of relief from my mother when I at the age of 34 (GASP!) finally landed what she considered a "proper" job at a big global company with thousands of employees. That was her ultimate pinnacle for me. That was safety, in her mind. And I get it, I really do. I ended up staying there for many years. But ultimately? Corporate and fitting into a mold was never really for me. 

Now jump forward to Gen Z. I had a really interesting conversation with one of my nephews about his generation, and he had some sharp observations. He said it was roughly 50/50, about half of his peers are incredibly ambitious, and the other half just aren't that motivated. And here's the fascinating part: both groups, he said, are that way because of the same thing. Because everything feels accessible.

The ambitious half looks at what they see on social media and thinks, if they can do it, so can I. They want to work hard, they see the path as wide open. The other half looks at the same thing and thinks, well, everything can be done on my phone, why bother putting in a ton of effort? When I was growing up, you literally had to physically get yourself off the couch and make things happen. The effort was real and visible. Now so much of life happens on a screen in your pocket, and that changes things.

He also admitted that a lot of the ambitious group is motivated mainly by money and status and that the "it looks easy on Instagram" illusion might be feeding a tiny bit of that entitled reputation Gen Z has picked up.

But regardless. I want to say something directly to anyone who is Gen Z and listening to this.

You are welcome here.

I am so tired of hearing people write off an entire generation. You are not my generation, which was told you needed to show unwavering loyalty, not change jobs every two years, prove yourself by grinding for decades before you earned the right to ask for what you wanted. That model? It's breaking down. I don't want Gen Z to repeat the same mistakes that Gen X and Millennials made. I want you to do things your way. If you're Gen Z and you want to build a career that's actually built around you — you are welcome here, and I want to help you.

And honestly, as I talked about in episode 3, when AI starts doing most entry level jobs, the old rules really don't apply anymore anyway. Why should Gen Z pour faith into institutions that they can see aren't working? They're not blind. They watch the older generations getting laid off, they watch decades of loyalty not get rewarded. So instead of bashing them for being skeptical, maybe we should be learning from their clarity.

What We All Actually Want

Here's the thing that gets lost in all the generational noise: we actually all want the same thing. We want work that we enjoy. Work we're good at. And work we can make a reasonable living from. That's it. No one, at any age, from any generation, is sitting there going, "you know what I really want? To feel like a cog in a machine, completely disconnected from why I'm doing this, slowly grinding my soul down to nothing." Nobody wants that.

What changes across generations isn't the desire, it's how we've been taught to pursue it. The rules we've been handed about what's acceptable, what's safe, what's respectable, what's realistic. And those rules shift because the world shifts. The world Gen Z is entering is fundamentally different from the one I entered, which was different from the one my parents entered.

So the question isn't which generation has the right approach. The question is: what approach actually works for you, in the world as it actually exists right now?

Your 20s, Your 30s, Your 40s — And Why Each Decade Is Doing Something Important

I had a conversation with a friend recently — we're both in our 40s — and we both admitted something that I think a lot of people would relate to. We both said that the decade where we felt most lost, most confused about who we were and where we were going, was our 30s. Not our 20s. Not now. Our 30s. And that really stuck with me, because I think there's this cultural narrative that your 20s are the confusing years and your 30s are when you get it together. Get serious. Have the plan. And then your 40s are when you're established and settled. But that's not what I actually experienced, and it's not what I see in a lot of the people I work with either.

In my 20s, I had this incredible feeling of infinite possibility. I decided to pack up and move abroad, to the US for four years and it felt like the easiest decision. The world felt big and open and mine to explore. I was experimenting with different industries, different roles, seeing what stuck. I didn't have it figured out, but I wasn't panicking about that. There was this sense that time was endless, that I could afford to try things.

I will say though that I thought I was very grown-up and serious when I turned 25. I genuinely thought, okay, now I'm an adult, time to make Some Big Life Decisions. Looking back, that's... adorable, honestly. LOL.I mean, 25…

Then my 30s hit. And that feeling of infinite time started to close in a little. The "adulting" got heavier. There were more expectations — from outside and from myself. I started chasing purpose in a really anxious way. Constantly asking: what am I supposed to be doing with my life? What's my path? What’s my purpose? What do I wanna be when I grow up? Have I wasted time? Why haven't I figured this out yet?

That question of "finding myself" became this exhausting presence throughout my 30s. However. Now that I'm in my 40s, something shifted. And the most surprising thing about it is this: I feel like I've returned to who I was in my 20s. Not regressed but RETURNED. Like the truest version of myself from back then is here again, but with years of experience and perspective layered on top. Fewer effs to give, just like back then, but in a much wiser, more grounded way.

My friend said exactly the same thing. There's this return to yourself that happens around 40 for a lot of people. Like you've accumulated enough life to finally stop performing the version of yourself the world wanted, and you remember who you actually are before all of that. So kinda like that David Bowie quote I mentioned at the beginning. 

I’m curious if this resonates with you? Wherever you are in your age journey, I'd love to know. Feel free to leave a comment, DM on Instagram or send me an email.

The Astrological Map of Your Life Stages

Now, if you've been listening to this show for a while, you know I love using astrology as a practical lens, not as a predictive fortune telling tool, but as a framework for understanding the seasons we move through in life. And when it comes to age and identity, astrology has a LOT to say. Let me walk you through a few of the big ones.

Around age 18-19: Your Nodal Return.

Your North Node and South Node, which represent your soul's direction and past patterns, complete their first full cycle. This is often the moment when people start figuring out what they're naturally drawn to vs. what doesn't feel like them. It's no coincidence that this is when a lot of people head to university or start making their first real independent choices. Something shifts around this age, you start to get a clearer sense of what you're drawn to vs. what doesn't feel like you, what lights you up vs. what leaves you cold.

Around age 27-30: Your Saturn Return.

This is a big one. Saturn, the planet of structure, discipline, responsibility, and reality checks, comes back to the exact position it was in when you were born. And there is nothing subtle about it. If you've been living out of alignment with your true self (in the wrong relationship, the wrong career, the wrong city, the wrong identity) Saturn will make that very, very clear. The lessons can linger for years into your 30s, which I think explains a lot of why that decade feels so uncomfortable for so many people.

I had a pretty rough Saturn return myself. A lot of things I thought were right for me turned out not to be. And rather than it feeling like failure at the time, I can look back now and see it for what it was: Saturn clearing the path and giving me a nudge in the right direction. 

Around age 38-42: Your Uranus Opposition.

Ah yes. The infamous midlife crisis. But here's how I actually see this: it's not a crisis, it's a course correction. Uranus is the planet of revolution, sudden change, and awakening. When it reaches the opposite point in the sky from where it was at your birth, it creates this intense pressure: wake up, change course, stop living someone else's life. If you've made it to 40 still ignoring your true calling, Uranus will do something dramatic to get your attention.

Sudden career changes at 40? Well, hey, that was me. Relationships ending or transforming? Feeling an urgent, almost electric pull toward something completely different? That's Uranus. And it's actually working in your favour, even when it doesn't feel like it. My Uranus opposition is honestly what got me here, doing this work, running this business, having these conversations. I had felt a calling for something different and more fulfilling than a corporate career for years but I kept pushing it aside because of what looked acceptable "good" on paper” and I didn’t want to feel like I had wasted all those years in corporate just to let them go to waste. I was still set on climbing upwards. But. Uranus eventually said: enough. We're doing this now.

What I find so beautiful about all of this is that the universe literally has a built-in map for your self-discovery journey. These aren't random crises or failures or signs that you're behind. They are developmental checkpoints. Invitations to come back to yourself.

And it doesn’t stop at the Uranus opposition, there is more to come after that, but we need to see these transits as our little helpers on our personal evolution path. 

It's Never Too Late. It's Never Too Soon.

I want to sit with this for a moment because I feel it's the heart of everything I want to say today. I've worked with people of all ages. My youngest client was 16. Her mother sent her my way, because she was about to start applying to universities and had no idea what she wanted to do, she felt lost. My oldest client was 60, about to retire from a long career working in the same field, but she wanted to continue working, just for herself instead. And do you know what they both had in common? The sense that maybe they weren't at the right stage or age to choose the right path for them. The 16-year-old thought she was too young to have a calling. The 60-year-old thought she was too old to change direction.

Both of them were wrong.

I actually believe that YOU are a multi-faceted being who is constantly evolving. That means you will have more than one calling in this life. Not just one neat purpose that you discover once and then execute for the next 40 years. You will grow into new versions of yourself that need new expressions of meaning. And that does not mean you are unable to focus, that is what being alive actually looks like.

If you're in your 20s and hearing this: you don't need to have it figured out. What you can do right now is experiment without the weight of urgency. Try things. Pay attention to what lights you up and what drains you. Pay attention to what doesn’t. The data you're collecting now is invaluable.

If you're in your 30s and feeling lost: I know that feeling intimately. The discomfort you're in isn't a sign that you've failed. It might actually be Saturn doing its work, clearing out what doesn't belong so you can get to what does. Let it.

If you're in your 40s or beyond and thinking it's too late to change: it is not. I promise you it is not. Yes, you've invested years into a path. That investment doesn't go to waste just because you change direction. It becomes part of the unique perspective you bring to whatever comes next. The experience you have is not a cage. It's material.

And if you've spent decades in a career that has left you feeling unfulfilled, that feeling is information, not weakness. It doesn't matter how long you were there or how much you invested. If it's no longer for you, it's no longer for you. And you are allowed to do something about that.

I also want to say something to anyone who's considering starting a business without a ton of traditional work experience: I don't believe you can't do that. I genuinely don't. If traditional employment isn't an option, whether it’s because the jobs aren't there, because you're entering a market that's changing faster than anyone expected, or because it just isn't right for you, then building something of your own might be your path. And you don't need decades of experience behind you to start. You need self-awareness, you need to understand what value you bring, and you need the courage to begin.

I’ve said this before: Self-awareness is not self-indulgent. It's not navel-gazing. Knowing yourself, like really knowing yourself, is how you build something that actually works and lasts. At any age.

Next Steps

So. If this episode has stirred something in you, whatever age you are, whatever stage you're in,  I have a couple of things that might help you right now.

The first thing I'd recommend is my free guide, the Passion Pattern Framework. This is for anyone who feels like they have lots of interests but can't quite identify the underlying thread that connects them all. It's designed to help you identify those recurring themes and passions that have shown up across your whole life, which is especially helpful if you've been doing a lot of different things and you're trying to make sense of where they're pointing.

I also have Cosmic Career Clarity, which takes you through five key chart placements across Human Design, Astrology, and the Gene Keys, and shows you how your specific design could translate into meaningful work. 

And if you're ready to go deeper and actually work through your specific design and life situation with someone, I offer one-on-one intensive sessions. This is where we build your roadmap together — your chart, your history, your specific circumstances — and create a real, personalized direction forward. All the details are on my website, link in the show notes.

Wherever you are on your journey — 19, 34, 52, 60 — it's not too late. It's not too soon. It's just your right now. And your right now is always the right time to start.

Thanks so much for being here. If this episode resonated, please leave a review or share it with someone who might need to hear it — it genuinely helps more people find the show. And I'll see you next time.