For a long time, I didn’t know what I wanted. All I knew was the life I had built was no longer working for me.
On paper, I had succeeded. I was among the first 500 clinical pharmacists in the U.S. to earn dual specialty certifications in Pharmacotherapy and Critical Care. I received a grant for a research project and was invited to present at an international conference.
Still, I felt empty.
Unable to figure out what to do next, I decided to try out new things to broaden my horizons.
I started taking professional pastry chef courses on the weekends. It was expensive, but I loved making tarts, French macarons, and sourdough bread. For a while, I thought about opening a bakery. A new life.
In San Francisco, rent was high and competition was fierce. My bakery idea fizzled before it even landed.
Around the same time, I started reading Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth. I became so immersed in the story that I thought, why not start writing again?
Writing had been my childhood passion. Growing up, I’d dreamed of becoming a writer known for her stories. After winning several writing competitions before college, I assumed my career path was set.
After 45, burnout and need for recalibration feel identical — same exhaustion, same loss of purpose. But one needs rest and boundaries. The other needs a new direction.
Instead, I earned a business degree, then a master’s in engineering, and eventually, a doctor of pharmacy.
So, twenty years after publishing my last magazine piece at 21, I began writing again. Little by little, I made my way back to a creative dream I’d set aside.
Four years later, I knew writing was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. At 45, my pharmacist job supported me while I spent all my free time writing.
What I didn’t realize then was that I had not only burned out from pharmacy but was also ready to recalibrate my life.
Burnout and the need for recalibration can feel identical from the inside. That bone-deep exhaustion, that utter lack of excitement and purpose.
Same symptoms. Different diagnosis.
Burnout demands a rest and boundaries. Recalibration calls for a new destination. Sometimes, you need both to build a new life.
After 45, the cost of misreading the symptoms is high. You don’t want to spend another decade recovering from a wrong turn.
But you do have something you didn’t have at 21: enough self-knowledge and lived experience to redirect with everything you’ve already built. Let it lead you to the next spark.
You don’t have to quit your day job like I did, but hold onto that spark. Keep the fire going. That’s the thing that’ll make you proud in the end.
