Every day brings new challenges to face and conquer. Whether or not you are able to triumph will depend upon not only skill but also resolve. Distractions line the way, as does discouragement. And as you age or become more entrenched in your work, the distractions change, as do the things that discourage you. I guess I am feeling my age these days. I don't feel older but I'm one of them smart chicks; I know I am, older, that is.

Whenever I hear or read about discrimination, it is someone else facing it, not I. While I would not claim my life and the path I have trod as easy, I would not say it has been so overwhelming to be insurmountable. As I age and as younger generations surrounds me with their mad skills, their crazy knowledge and understanding of technology, as well as their seemingly better way, I realize that I am on the back side of life. And I wonder how can it be? I still feel eighteen.

The last couple of weeks have brought this more into the forefront of my mind. Why? Because it is being spoken of, I suppose. I have friends who still cannot secure work and they are questioning if it is their age. There are a few that have had senior leadership positions for most of their adult life and now they find themselves "over-qualified" and unemployable. I feel like I am brand-spanking-new to biz and the corporate world, ever intrigued and plagued by my desire to learn as much as I can every day. But when I look around my office and I realize I am the elder in the room, it sometimes scares me.

Not that I am 46, I love being my age. Not that I have a few gray hairs and some smile crinkles to match; they are not wrinkles yet - really, they aren't. Not that I feel like I cannot keep up or that I have "brain fog" - a new term I learned last week, thanks Recruiting Animal. Not that I have ever felt inadequate or insecure in my work or even my knowledge. What I fear is that others will think those things. That others will assume that my boat is getting further away from the harbor. That conclusions will be jumped to, as I have witnessed happen to my older friends.

But wittingly enough on my part, I love the blue ocean. So, I don't mind being away from a seemingly safe harbor. I still thrive on finding that better way, on building a strong foundation around me and under whatever project on which I am working. How safe is a harbor that shackles you and keeps you from exploring. Neither Magellan nor Ponce De Leon have anything on me. My fountain of youth is what lies at my finger tips - the internet, a phone number dialed, press releases and web copy written, whatever fantastic new technology with which I get to play ends up in my hands and a pen that takes frantic notes when information comes my way - that's my fountain. I plan on drinking from it for a long time to come.