It's Never Too Late to Find Your Passion: A Guest Post by Tammy Euliano
I’m on maternity leave! During this time, a few of my favorite authors offered to step up and write guest posts so that this blog would remain active while I adjust to my new role as a mother. I may also be a bit slower to respond. Thanks for understanding and for being so supportive of me, my family, and my blog. Want to donate a few dollars to keep this blog running or perhaps contribute to my diaper fund? You can do so on Venmo or Paypal.
It's Never Too Late to Find Your Passion: A Guest Post by Tammy Euliano
Once upon a time, there was a kid who loved to read, and write her own childish stories. As she grew she devoured Nancy Drew and all the biographies in the school library. She felt compelled to be worthy of a biography of her own someday and studied science and math and was eventually admitted to medical school. Sadly, academic success came at a cost—no time for enjoyment reading, or even learning if there wasn’t a grade. She excelled-ish and became an academic anesthesiologist, then a wife and mother, and started reading again—the Goodnight Moon variety, evolving into Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter.
Then she, okay I, spoiler alert, it’s me. I discovered audiobooks and reclaimed my love of novels and learning while at the gym and commuting to the hospital and going to the grocery store. Blessed with an amazing mentor at work, we wrote an introductory anesthesia textbook with humor and fascinating (at least to us) asides. Dr. Gravenstein then said
Our early plotting efforts were interrupted by his illness and passing, as well as his insistence that I accept a promotion to Residency Program Director, in charge of recruiting, then the education and progress of 88 anesthesiology residents over their four years of training. It was both the next logical step in my career, and maybe the worst possible job for me. It took a few years to accept, but managing people is not a strength, and dealing with all the soul-sucking personality issues and regulatory minutiae was, well, you get the picture. Meanwhile, a new novel idea took up residence and wouldn’t be ignored.
Scroll ahead five years, my eldest is a senior in high school with the other two not far behind. My sister just recovered from a ruptured brain aneurysm, and I recently read Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” I’m on a 20th Anniversary hiking trip in Sedona with my husband and I come to a realization…I don’t have to keep doing this. It may be the next step on the ladder I’m on, but what if I switch ladders? It went against my nature to consider quitting, but I was no longer happy in my work, no longer fulfilled.
Grit and perseverance are lauded as essential characteristics (See “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth)—qualities that predict success in everything from academia to the military. I wager Vince Lombardi’s “Winners never quit and quitters never win” is recognized by the vast majority of Americans of a certain age. At the risk of overstepping, I humbly offer an addendum, “…quitters never win the game,” where the game can be anything from a sporting event to a career choice. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with choosing not to win that particular game, with choosing a different game. In “Sometimes Winning Means Knowing When to Quit,” John List refers to this as “pivoting to something better.”
So pivot I did. I returned from vacation, resigned my administrative positions, wrapped up my research, decreased to 60% at work, and started writing in earnest. I read books and took courses on writing craft, soon discovering an entire world and breadth/depth of knowledge every bit as engaging as medicine had been decades earlier. At my first writing conference, I fell in love with the supportive people that are writers, so unlike the more competitive feel of medical conferences. And so I learned, and read, and wrote, and re-wrote, and pitched, and reeled from innumerable rejections, and bounced back with the help of amazing writer-friends, and finally had some short stories published, and received my first writing-related paycheck ($3), and volunteered to moderate a medical panel at Bouchercon, where I met an amazing fellow physician/author who invited me to submit my manuscript to her publishing company and alas, a year later, my debut novel, Fatal Intent, came out in March, 2021 and the sequel, Misfire, in January, 2023.
I wish I’d had good Mr. List’s article earlier. It may have averted some self-flagellation. But the concepts have always been there:
Notice what brings you flow, joy and fulfillment and do more of those things
Equally notice the joy-sucks and strive to eliminate or minimize those things
Identify your “have to’s” -- family, marriage, health – and seek enjoyable ways to support those
Choose achievable, life-affirming habits, like exercising with a friend or regularly scheduled date nights
Lastly, and most importantly, reassess every 10 years. Put it on your calendar. These things evolve. We evolve. Our strengths change along with our preferences. And when you recognize your time is no longer spent in areas that bring you flow, joy and fulfillment, pivot to something better.
Now, I’m considering a more definitive pivot--retiring completely from medicine to write full-time. I still enjoy caring for patients and teaching, and having health insurance, and a paycheck. And no doubt “physician” is an integral part of my identity and ego, but if I want to fully embrace this encore career, this passion, I need to invest my limited time and energy wisely.
Who knows, maybe I’ll change the world as an author by offering a few hours of escape in a good, and hopefully thought-provoking, book.
It's Never Too Late to Find Your Passion: A Guest Post by Tammy Euliano
