Most of the comments on this thread ignite some of my fears and thoughts I have on retirement. "Haven't thought about retirement", "I'll probably work until I'm 70" Holy crap! I'm 38 and contribute a significant amount of my paycheck to retirement. I want to retire as early as possible. I mean work is great but not working sounds better. I work at a small agency now and I don't want to go into management. I think about this a lot and honestly part of my wanting to retire early is I can't imaging being a designer when I'm old. I remember back at art school having some old professors. One of them constantly told us about his ulcer. The other brought in a packaging proof (made in quark express ha!) that he screwed up, got the sides mixed up. The lesson: "kids, mistakes happen" but honestly I think it was because learning quark was such a stretch for him.

Anyway, unfortunately our industry is considered a young industry. If you're not a management type person there aren't tons of options, or maybe its just a matter of not letting the association or the word young to only mean innovative & fresh get to you and just keep chugging along the best you can.