Derek Brooks

I’m 40 now. Almost dead. So, as I approach my final years (RIP), I’ve been reflecting a lot on the past decade and what I want going forward. On my 30th birthday, I moved to Chicago to kick off a new, stressful, and fruitful trajectory in my life and career. In that decade, I took some risks, took advantage of some big opportunities, worked hard, had some big wins, lucked out, and burned out. On …

So, my friend Carol has this theory that you truly begin your middle aged life once you become thirty three and a third. She's based this on the idea that if we live to be ~100 years old (yea right), the first third of your life is from 0 to 33.3 years old, the second (middle) third is until you're 66.6 years old, and so on... She totally buys into this thing too. Like she'll even make you a …