Gauri Vats meditates on turning 40 and taking a new direction in life.
I recently turned 40. I started the morning the way I often try to — with meditation. I’m supposed to quiet my thoughts. That rarely happens. So instead, I just watch them. This morning, the first image that came to me was my favorite place. It’s a house in Ritz Cove, California.
The sky there is always blue. The sun always seems to be shining. And somewhere in the background, there’s always the sound of waves crashing against the shore. It’s my uncle’s house.
He was born in a small village in northern India. He came to the United States as an engineer, worked for years, and in 1986 — the year I was born — he bought a large lot in a quiet Southern California community. Over time, he built a home there. A big one, behind tall gates, where the air smells like salt and the ocean stretches out in front of you. Every year, our family would visit. It felt like stepping into a different world. But that’s not the part I kept thinking about this morning.
What stayed with me is what he did in his 40s. At a point in life when many people are settling in — comfortable in their careers, raising their families — my uncle, who had all of the above, decided to make a change. He left engineering and applied to medical school. For four years, he studied, took exams, and built something entirely new. He went on to become a primary care physician, a career that lasted more than two decades.