There is one truth that our success-driven society has to come to terms with. Unfortunately, professional capabilities drop off much earlier than we expect. Consider the research on peak performance. Scientists, for example, make their most significant breakthroughs in their late thirties. Physicists, chemists, and doctors are at their prime at fifty, forty-six, and forty-five, respectively. But why then do we hear everywhere that we can climb the top of the career ladder whenever we want?

The narrative that age is just a number is a comforting fantasy. Brain science, however, reveals a starkly different reality. The thing is, the prefrontal cortex, which controls our highest thinking, begins losing sharpness sooner than we want to admit. This biological fact creates what we might call the “striver’s curse.”

If you base your identity only on your early-career wins, you become increasingly vulnerable. Because as you age, the dread of becoming irrelevant becomes unmanageable, turning what once sparked joy into a source of deep anxiety. It results in a destructive pattern when strivers intensify the exact tactics that brought initial success. They log longer hours and chase increasingly ambitious projects. Does it actually work? In fact, it leads straight to misery.

Take the case of Charles Darwin. Even after changing science forever, he died feeling unfulfilled. His later work never managed to rekindle the intellectual excitement and passion he’d felt before. Or take Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. He got so caught up in staying relevant that he damaged his reputation by backing some pretty dubious theories in his final years.

But there’s a way to avoid this tragic fate. The key is recognizing that what propelled you to the top won’t sustain your sense of purpose forever. At some point, you’ll need to discover and take on a new kind of meaning.