I think it's pretty unhealthy to be influenced by who has posted before reading a thread. That is a very good way to narrow the range of views you are exposing yourself to.

Smiilarly it is not healthy to "hope" for responses from particular people.

Both these approaches will limit you professionally and personally.

Considering we are talking about anonymous people on a forum, it is especially bad news if you are also carrying these views into your day to day life.

You raise an interesting topic though and it's one I think most people go with. They just tend not to publicly admit it. It leads to cliques and inappropriate white knighting of others. That leads directly to the sort of abuses of power by supervisors which we continually hear stories about on this very forum. I wonder if anyone else will be brave enough to admit they do what you do :-)

Two things come to mind.
Firstly, which universities are telling you that at 32 you are too old to study business?
Secondly, if you are already running a business why would you study business at uni. What is it you think you need which you can't get from books, online resources and networking with peers? The people teaching you by definition won't be business owners so what do you think they know that you don't?

You are digging yourself quite the little hole here :-D

This must be very difficult for you but I was interested when you used the phrase "I also feel guilty about being several hundred kilometers away and not helping my dad with caregiving."

This is primarily your dad's problem. It's why people get married. There are good times and then at the end there are difficult times. You should not be feeling an obligation to help. I would be horrified if any of my children felt guilty about me dying and I certainly would never ask them to put their careers on hold for me. That would be my wife's job unless she dies first in which case it would be my obligation to her to be there for her.The worst part of this is that you'd be doing it out of guilt rather than anything else.

There will be a time and a place for you to help out and it might be that you take a few short breaks to visit over the next few months but the idea of suspending your work for possibly unspecified number of months is going way beyond what should be expected of you.

You are not cursed and this isn't a problem of your level of ambition. You are simply being unreasonable with your expectations. You want everything to be perfect every day and you want everything to happen for you today.
You are assuming your career has to follow a path A-B-C and you are internally refusing to accept any deviation from that, with no experience or evidence to suggest your thoughts are correct. This is making your life miserable.

You should be asking your inner voice exactly why it is insisting that you should have had an impact at 28. Insist on an answer to this question. Almost nobody has an impact at that age. Why are you convinced then that you MUST have done so?

Same goes for the linear career path you talked about. Why does it need to be linear? Who is telling you this?

Both of these ideas are nonsense. If you can see that, you'll be a lot less stressed out.

I don't have anything to add to what rewt and TQ have added above but I have to say that the advice given by Walter_Opera is very poor indeed. I would ignore all of it. There are reasons why certain people succeed and fail in academia and there is no formula for success. Some people get academic jobs without a PhD and without publishing whilst others with massive publication lists fail to land a job.
If this is what you want to pursue then do so until you decide for yourself that it's not going to work. You'll regret it if you terminate a career path on the back of a crushingly and needlessly negativity piece of advice.

You reckon it's too late to make a meaningful impact at 28 ???
I'm sorry but that is quite frankly absolutely ridiculous.
You also seem to be intent on hammering yourself for every error you make.

People who don't understand the roles time and making mistakes plays in our lives are setting themselves up for a lifetime of failure and misery.

From looking at your history of posts, it is clear to me that the biggest obstacle you face isn't your circumstances, your age or mistakes you have made. It's your attitude to all of this. I don't mean this to sound like I'm having a go at you. It's a genuine attempt to try to help.

If you continue like this you are either going to have a complete breakdown or you are going to end up in your 40s with the same issues.

Then this is an easy decision. You don't enjoy the line of work you are pursuing in your PhD and your work with homeless outreach fires you up.
Life is too short to waste. You should pursue the thing which makes you happy. Once you do that your head will be in a great place to make future decisions.
Good luck.

It's not about how many hours you work but what you accomplish within those hours.

Like anyone else, you are not going to know until you try I'm afraid and it will depend on your area of interest.
This website is a good place to start looking for fully funded positions as is jobs.ac.uk

Of course the question you are not asking is the one you really want answered. No I don't think your age will be a problem :-) People of all ages do PhDs.

This really is a shameful way to respond to a fellow poster.
jasonger has earned the right to treat this opportunity in whatever way he sees fit regardless of how you or anyone else feels about it.
You have no right to talk to him like this.

You are talking about going through several screening phases and interviews.
This suggests you are focussing on large companies.
You might have better joy with small and medium companies who generally don't have multiple phase hiring policies.

Kenzie, I started my own business after graduating from my PhD.
Despite the difficulties I would not re-enter academia amd probably not employment either.

Good for you.

Yes, I'm afraid you are going to be faced with this sort of arrogant nonsense throughout your academic career Actually, it is one of the reasons I left academia after graduating from my PhD last year. I can't imagine anything worse than having these people as my co-workers. The only connection between myself and academia now is this forum which I visit from time to time to offer advice. Other than that I am glad to be away from it.

There are good people out there. You might have to dig to find them though. Just don't be in awe of any of these people. Not one of them deserves it. Believe in your own self-worth. There isn't another person in the world who can offer the package you can. We are all unique and therefore have inherent worth as a default. It's worth remembering that at this time.

Good luck.