Finding Balance in Entrepreneurship and Personal Fulfillment

When I left my job to start writing full-time, I had no idea what journey it would take me. I even had one person at my former place of employment snidely tell me, “If you can afford it, go for it.”

I had a midlife crisis in the middle of the perfect storm of events that had manifested in my life as well.

In 2021, the pandemic was still a raging topic, and I had recently published my very first book. The culmination of events that led to me deciding to leave my job was a whole bunch of little things coupled with a few big things, and I just felt like something had to give.

I was an addiction counselor in a group home, and I really did enjoy working with the clients there. I had a caseload of only 14. This was a therapist’s dream. However, I had to spend a ton of time justifying people’s continued need to stay at home to insurance because it seems any positive progress is deemed appropriate to discharge people even if they have no place to go. This is one of the reasons treatment for mental health and addiction ends up costing way more than it should. People are not getting adequate services once they start showing improvement. Then, they are prematurely discharged and have minimal support despite being promised lots of it. They end up in an endless cycle of being in and out of treatment.

At the same time, I was also trying to care for my grandmother, who has dementia. She was living with me, and she was challenging to manage.