Note this post was originally posted in Substack back in September 2025.

After nearly 6 years of daydreaming of taking some time off from the 9-5 grind, I officially quit my job in public health. I have been daydreaming of this career break before my “professional career” even began.

During the fall of 2019, I was sitting in my cubicle at my dead-end office job I had at the time, frustrated that I could not land an entry-level job with my degree. Having graduated with a Master’s in Public Health in 2017, I spent two years struggling to land a related role. From applying to nearly 100 jobs, interviewing for about 5 of them, several rounds of resume edits, practice interviews, and upskill courses, I was nowhere near landing a promising role. I told myself, if I could not land a job in my field by the end of the year, I would quit my dead-end medical billing job sometime in 2020 and go on a 3 month travel break, backpacking South America.

Well, I’m definitely a believer that things happen for a reason. I received a job offer for a company I had been applying to (and rejected twice for the same role I ended up working in) by December of 2019. I decided to put this career break on hold until I had received a few years of direct experience in the public health world.

Then of course COVID-19 happened a few months later and history was made. It was a hell of a time to start a public health career.

Fast forward to 2025 and it’s more challenging than ever to be working in this field. I won’t go on any political rants, but regardless of what your political affiliation is, there is no denying that the current US Administration has been slashing jobs in this field at an alarming rate. The company I’m about to leave had experienced receiving threatening phone calls and misinformation about their grant work in the news. All of a sudden, we went from a normal day working remotely to panic work the past six months of being censored, gossip around several rounds of layoffs, and a chaotic job market that has not seemed to provide better options. I applied to 50 jobs within two months, either to be ghosted or rejected.

I have known since the end of 2020 that the project I focused on at work would lose grant funding by September 2025. Originally, I thought that the timing of this would work great to embark on my well-dreamed of career break. I would be turning 35, have plenty of time to save some money, and figured by then that COVID-19 would either end or become manageable.

Yet, for some reason, I still hung on to the thought of keeping my job for another 5 year funding cycle. Maybe if I keep hanging on until my student loans are paid off, then I can finally enjoy life. But it took a meltdown over technical issues involving a high-stress project deliverable where I was finally honest with myself. I can’t do this for another 5 years.

I had already experienced some significant life and personal challenges the past 2-3 years around burnout and divorce, and constantly living in “survival mode” during this time period has been taking a toll. I never suffered from back and shoulder blade pain until about a year ago. My chronic migraines I thought I had been managing since my early 20’s were back in full force. My weight was at an all-time high. How can I be advocating for health and well-being in our society if I’m too stressed out in my career to take care of myself?

Unfortunately, this is not all uncommon. According to a 2022 survey by the American Medical Association, 46% of healthcare workers reported feeling burned out. That’s a significant number that should not be ignored. Yet it is so engrained in our culture to keep “pushing through”. We tend to look down at those who quit, especially without having another role lined up. The lack of job security in 2025 has also contributed to significant stress among workers.

Yet despite these uncertainties, I have decided to take a risk and invest in myself and well-being. I’m also challenging the idea of what it means to have a career these days. The idea of careers being linear, where you work up the corporate ladder is no longer applicable to most people, especially in a world of constant uncertainty. I’m now seeing my life as more cyclical than linear, and I’m ready to embark on this next cycle of time off to focus on travel, well-being, and spiritual endeavors.

My hope with The Career Break Chronicles portion of my blog is to share my experiences, thoughts, and research on career breaks and life redesign, for those who are brave enough to step out of the rat race and status quo. I’ve struggled to find significant information on others who’ve taken career breaks, so my hope by sharing my experiences will help towards the journey of destigmatizing career breaks, rest, and challenge our culture around overwork. I hope you’ll join me on this next adventure!