In this article, the author discusses the meaning and importance of the long-term view in the academic profession. Taking the half-century view of a career allows everyone to conceptualize his/her work as both a solitary venture and a group effort. As your career develops and you build alliances and partnerships with colleagues--and then with graduate students who go on to build their own careers--you begin to understand how any particular area of research must satisfy the interests of not just yourself but others. It is important to remember that the 50-year career plan works only if you accept it as a metaphor and not as an actual prognosticative blueprint. In fact, many scholars do not have one long career but many different ones--a stint as a researcher, another as an administrator, or a string of periods perusing different subjects. The point is not to expect that for the next 50 years you will do one thing, or many similar things sequentially, but that you benefit from spending 50 years doing many different things. Such is the pursuit of happiness afforded to those scholars who think in long-term.