The Birthday That Made Me Look Back

Tomorrow, I will turn forty.

For some people, turning forty may simply be another birthday. It may be a time to celebrate achievements, family, career and stability. For me, however, this birthday has made me stop and look back at the road I have travelled.

Forty years is a long time.

It contains thousands of mornings and nights, countless examinations, years of study, moments of hope, periods of disappointment and many experiences that cannot be written on a certificate.

As I stand at the threshold of forty, one question repeatedly comes to my mind:

What did I spend all these years preparing for?

I have spent a major part of my life pursuing education. I completed my B.Sc., then M.Sc. and M.A. I qualified for NET and SET and eventually pursued a PhD. I continued studying even when the journey became difficult because I believed that education was the strongest investment a person could make in life.

I also became a teacher.

I have taught students at different levels, from higher secondary education to the university level. I have entered classrooms, prepared lessons, explained difficult concepts, answered questions, corrected mistakes and watched students move ahead in their own lives.

Teaching gave meaning to my education.

Yet, despite all these qualifications and years of teaching experience, I am still waiting for a permanent job.

And tomorrow, I turn forty.

That is why this birthday feels different.

I Was Never Afraid of Education

I never considered education a burden.

For me, every degree represented another step towards a better future.

After completing one qualification, I did not stop. I continued towards another. B.Sc. was followed by M.Sc. Then came M.A. I qualified NET and SET. Finally, I pursued a PhD.

Every stage required time, patience and sacrifice.

There were years when other people were already settling into their careers while I was still studying. There were moments when I must have appeared to others as someone who was simply collecting degrees.

But there was always a reason.

I believed that if I continued improving my qualifications, one day an appropriate opportunity would come.

I believed that knowledge would eventually find its place.

I believed that my qualifications and experience would make me eligible for a respectable position.

Most importantly, I believed that perseverance would eventually be rewarded.

That belief kept me going.

## From Student to Teacher

My life was not confined to books and examinations.

I also spent years teaching.

I have taught from the higher secondary level to the university level. Every classroom gave me a different experience.

A classroom teaches a teacher many things.

It teaches patience.

It teaches communication.

It teaches responsibility.

It teaches that every student is different.

And it teaches that knowledge has meaning only when it is shared.

There were days when I entered a classroom tired or worried, but once I stood before students, my personal difficulties had to wait. The students expected their teacher to teach them.

So I taught.

I prepared lessons.

I explained topics.

I encouraged students to ask questions.

I tried to help them understand not only their subjects but also the value of education itself.

Ironically, while I was encouraging students to build their futures through education, I was still struggling to secure my own professional future.

Perhaps that is one of the deepest contradictions of my life.

I helped others prepare for tomorrow while continuing to wait for my own tomorrow.

The Long Wait for a Permanent Opportunity

The hardest part of my journey has not been studying.

It has been waiting.

Waiting is a strange experience.

When someone is studying, there is a clear goal: complete the course, pass the examination, obtain the degree.

But after the degree is completed, the situation becomes uncertain.

You apply.

You wait.

You prepare.

You hope.

Another opportunity appears.

You apply again.

Then you wait again.

Meanwhile, time does not wait.

Years pass silently.

Your qualifications increase, your teaching experience grows, but your age also increases.

This is where my story becomes painful.

I have accumulated qualifications, but I have not been able to secure the permanent professional stability I had hoped for.

The certificates are real.

The degrees are real.

The teaching experience is real.

The years are real.

And so is the disappointment.

When Age Becomes a Number That Changes Everything

Tomorrow I will be forty.

In ordinary life, forty is just an age.

It does not suddenly make a person less educated.

It does not erase experience.

It does not remove knowledge.

It does not take away the ability to teach.

It does not destroy a person's willingness to work.

But in the world of recruitment, age can become a decisive number.

Recruitment policies often contain age limits. Once a person crosses the prescribed age, many opportunities are no longer available to them.

This is the reality I am facing.

For years, I prepared myself academically and professionally.

But now, when I look towards future recruitment opportunities, another question stands before me:

Will I still be eligible to apply?

This question is painful because it is not a question about my knowledge.

It is a question about my age.

I sometimes wonder what happens to all the years of education when a person becomes “overage” for a particular opportunity.

Does the knowledge disappear?

Does the teaching experience disappear?

Does the PhD disappear?

Do NET and SET lose their meaning?

Of course not.

A person's qualifications remain.

Their experience remains.

Their ability to contribute remains.

Yet an age limit can close a door before a person's abilities have had the opportunity to be fully considered.

That is the reality I have experienced.

The Pain Behind a Qualification

People sometimes see a highly educated person and assume that everything must be going well.

They see B.Sc.

They see M.Sc.

They see M.A.

They see NET.

They see SET.

They see PhD.

They may think:

“What more could he want?”

But qualifications do not automatically guarantee security.

A degree can prove that you studied.

A certificate can prove that you qualified.

Experience can prove that you worked.

But none of these, by themselves, guarantees a permanent appointment.

That distinction is difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced it.

There is a particular kind of sadness in being highly qualified but still uncertain about one's professional future.

It is not that I regret studying.

I do not.

If I had to choose again, I would still choose education.

But I sometimes wish that education and opportunity had travelled together.

The Question People Do Not Ask

Society often asks successful people:

“What have you achieved?”

But it rarely asks:

“How many times did you try before you reached here?”

And when someone remains without a permanent position despite having qualifications, society may silently ask another question:

“Why are you still not settled?”

That question can hurt.

Because the person may have spent years trying.

Some struggles remain invisible.

People see the result but not the process.

They see the degree but not the years of study.

They see the teacher but not the uncertainty behind the teacher's life.

They see the person standing before them but not the thousands of thoughts that pass through that person's mind when he returns home after another ordinary day.

I have experienced this gap between what appears on paper and what exists in real life.

I Am Not Ashamed of My Journey

Despite everything, I do not consider my educational journey a failure.

My degrees are not failures.

My teaching years are not failures.

My students are not failures.

The knowledge I gained is not a failure.

The people I taught are not failures.

Every classroom in which I stood was part of my journey.

Every student who understood something because of my explanation was part of my achievement.

Every examination I passed represented a moment when I refused to give up.

If success means only receiving a permanent appointment, then my story may appear unfinished.

But if success also means continuing to learn, teaching others and refusing to surrender to circumstances, then perhaps my story has another meaning.

What Forty Has Taught Me

Forty has taught me something I could not have understood at twenty.

Life does not always follow the timetable we create for ourselves.

At twenty, we imagine where we will be at thirty.

At thirty, we imagine where we will be at forty.

But life does not always cooperate with our plans.

Sometimes the destination takes longer to reach.

Sometimes the road changes.

Sometimes doors close.

Sometimes we stand outside a door for years.

And sometimes we have to accept that one door may never open.

But that does not necessarily mean that the journey was meaningless.

My life has taught me that education is valuable even when it does not immediately produce the outcome we expect.

Teaching is valuable even when the teacher himself is struggling.

Perseverance is valuable even when success is delayed.

And dignity is valuable even when circumstances are difficult.

To Those Who Are Still Waiting

If someone reading my story is also waiting for an opportunity, I want to say one thing:

Do not measure your entire worth by one appointment letter.

A job is important.

Financial security is important.

Professional recognition is important.

I know this because I am still waiting for them.

But a person's worth is larger than a designation.

Keep learning.

Keep improving.

Keep working.

And, wherever possible, keep contributing to society.

At the same time, society and institutions must also recognise the difference between a person's age and a person's ability. Age is a measurable number; knowledge, experience and dedication are more complex qualities.

My story is not an argument against rules.

It is a reflection on what it feels like to stand at the boundary created by those rules after spending years preparing yourself.

My Unfinished Dream

Tomorrow I will be forty.

I do not know what the next chapter of my life will bring.

Perhaps another opportunity will come.

Perhaps I will continue teaching.

Perhaps my research will open another path.

Perhaps life will take me somewhere I have not yet imagined.

I do not know.

But I know this much:

I have not wasted my life.

I have studied.

I have taught.

I have learned.

I have contributed.

I have continued despite disappointment.

And I have refused to stop dreaming.

My dream of a stable professional life remains unfinished.

But unfinished does not mean dead.

Some stories take longer to reach their final chapter.

Mine is one of them.

A Birthday Without a Job, But Not Without Hope

Tomorrow, when I turn forty, I will probably think about the things I have achieved and the things I have not.

I will think about the degrees.

I will think about the classrooms.

I will think about my students.

I will think about the opportunities I received and those I missed.

I will think about the years that have passed.

And yes, I will probably feel sad.

It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

But alongside that sadness, there will also be gratitude.

Gratitude for the knowledge I received.

Gratitude for the students I taught.

Gratitude for the people who supported me.

And gratitude that, despite disappointment, I still dare to tell my story.

I began this story with a question:

What did I spend all these years preparing for?

Perhaps I still do not have the complete answer.

But maybe life is not always about having an immediate answer.

Maybe sometimes the purpose of a journey becomes clear only after we have travelled much farther than we expected.

Tomorrow I turn forty.

I may be overage for some recruitment opportunities.

But I refuse to believe that I am overage for learning.

I refuse to believe that I am overage for teaching.

I refuse to believe that I am overage for contributing.

And most importantly, I refuse to believe that I am overage for hope.

I am forty years old, but my story is not forty years old.

It is still being written.

And perhaps the most important chapter of my life has not yet begun.

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