Day-Storms Studio

The hardest decision I have ever made was walking away from a career I had spent decades building—at what many would call the very top of my game.

For years, I was a college professor and department chair in the medical sciences. I had the titles, the respect, the security. I was trusted with students’ futures, with shaping curriculum, with representing my institution. I was successful by every external measure. And yet, quietly, steadily, something inside me was eroding.

Burnout is too small a word for what I felt. My health—physical, mental, and spiritual—was beginning to fray at the edges. The long hours, the constant pressure, the emotional weight of leadership, and the rigid structures left little room to breathe. I was doing meaningful work. Yes, but I was losing myself in the process.

And that’s what made the decision so hard.

It’s one thing to walk away from something that isn’t working. It’s another thing entirely to step away from something that is working—something you’re good at, something others admire, something that feels, on paper, like the summit.

Choosing to leave academia felt like jumping without a visible net.

What I chose instead surprised a lot of people: I became a writer. And an artist. I shifted into a world that looked far less stable but felt infinitely more alive. I traded lecture halls and committee meetings for blank pages, creative risk, and entrepreneurial uncertainty.

But in that leap, I found something I didn’t even realize how deeply I was missing…alignment.

This new life is more amenable to my health. Not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. I have space to think. To create. To reflect. To heal. My work no longer drains every last ounce of emotional oxygen from the room. Instead, it gives something back.

And perhaps most importantly, it gave me back time.

Time with my three boys—Spider-Man*, Bonecrusher, and X-man. Time that doesn’t get shoved into leftover margins at the end of an exhausted day. Time for conversations, projects, laughter, failure, imagination, and presence. Time to actually be there—not just in proximity, but in attention.

For example, just this past week, I was able to participate in the Great Teach-In in both Spider-Man’s and Bonecrusher’s classes where I showed the classes how to do an art project (gel monoprinting). Then, I surprised the boys by making a special monoprint for them and having it on their bedroom door when they got home from school.

That’s the part that still catches in my throat when I think about how close I came to missing it.

Was the decision terrifying? Absolutely. Was it financially risky? Without question. Did I grieve the identity I had built for so long? More than I expected.

But the truth is this: staying would have slowly cost me my health, my peace, and pieces of the father and human being I wanted to be.

Leaving cost me certainty—but it gave me life.

Sometimes the hardest decisions aren’t about choosing between bad and good. Sometimes they’re about choosing between good and true. And I’ve learned that when you choose what is true to who you are becoming, even the fear feels like forward motion.

And I would make the same decision again—every single time.