I can't wait to be in a position that I have so much experience behind me. I am sure you are a very good physicist in that case, respect to you :)
Can I ask a question please? At what point in your career did you start to feel like an established useful scientist? I asked Fermi's Grand student (my Prof.) a few months back and his reply was "never" hahah.
The learning phase is never ending. Therefore, never is the right answer.
If one feels like being established, then one would probably stop learning new stuff and then loose connection with the state-of-the-art...
I'm glad you replied with that answer, I feel like i'm just starting to find my feet.
It's important to stay up to date I agree, it's exciting to think about how much we are still yet to learn and achieve.