Uncertainty and Unemployment

My start to the new year came with an unexpected surprise – the dental office I work at was to be permanently closed come the end of January 2026. The very practice I have worked at for the past 10 years, that one! Apparently the company decided the cost of repairing some structural issues in the building, combined with an unaccommodating (borderline negligent) landlord, made it not worth renewing the lease on. The company’s director came down to the office on Monday, January 5th (our first day back after a brief holiday break) and informed us all that we would be closing our doors at the end of the month and being laid-off in the process. Me personally, I was shocked by the news. Some staff members later confessed they saw it coming months earlier – apparently, the company had my lead assistant doing inventory checks and some other suspicious activity that now makes a lot more sense in hindsight. Regardless, the past month has been filled with uncertainty to say the least.

The company was quick to notify families that another location they own was available to them for continued dental care and hastily tried to funnel them across town. Saying goodbye to the families I did see this past month was really hard. I have enjoyed their trust and loyalty to our office for over a decade – it’s actually quite surreal to think that much time has passed. Many families were kind enough to share their disbelief and dismay when they got the news – after all, I have literally seen their kids grow up. I reciprocated in saying how astonished and sad I was to leave that location and went on to thank them for entrusting me all these years.

I am sitting here trying to harness my emotions from that day when I first heard I’m being let go. I guess if I had to find one word to describe it, it would be ‘bitterness.’ I think when you are corporately owned, there is a detachment and an almost callous indifference to who gets impacted by decisions often made by people high-up and far removed from the operations on the ground. Most of the staff at this location became unemployed, lots of families that enjoyed our service need to find another dental provider; but none of the human element is factored into their decision-making process as we are just seen as insufficient numbers on a spreadsheet to these captains of industry.

This is the third job I’ve lost throughout my life. The first time, I was young (in my 20’s) – lived at home still, and the family support really made that layoff almost seem insignificant (if not welcomed). That was still while I was in my I.T. era, and the job I worked was from the hours of midnight to 8 am doing phone support, sooooo…good riddance? In 2015, I was working part-time at this current practice, when I lost my second job as a (pediatric) dentist with another group – which also helped lighten the burden of being fired. Maybe it is the 10-years of my life I spent here, but this most recent firing stings so much worse than any time before.

Thankfully I consider myself financially stable and responsible. With the help of my wife, we have lived below our means for some time – we’ve saved an adequate emergency fund, possess a diversified retirement portfolio, and suitably control our monthly expenses. Push come to shove, we will have to forfeit some tennis and piano lessons for our kids, eat out a little less, and skip that trip to Hawaii this year – but, thankfully a lot of the sacrificing we have done over the years affords us some peace of mind that we won’t starve or be homeless any time soon.

Another blessing in disguise as it turns out, has been keeping good relations within the community of dental professionals around me. After reaching out to share the news of our closure, to my surprise, so many offices welcomed a chance to meet and discuss employment opportunities or even a partnership collaboration. I was very touched. In some weird turn of events, it is looking like I may be even more busy now then when I worked my full-time job.

“When God closes a door, he opens a window”

Nearly a month out now – the initial shock has settled and I am feeling quite optimistic about what the future holds. I remember speaking on previous posts about why I favor associateship – and while everyone’s experiences are different and it really is a case-by-case basis – at this point in my career I see more value in ownership, in equity, in doing something for yourself. I still have little to no faith in corporate loyalty towards its employees and I think most individuals are better off investing in themselves. That said, I am grateful that the associate position allowed me ample time to see my kids grow up and freedom from the stressors of running a business.

I am liking the prospects 2026 has in store. My New Year’s resolution is to not be in my head so much about undergoing change, but rather to embrace it and basically let the universe take the wheel. What are your thoughts? My apologies to anyone who reads my posts; it’s been an incredibly big gap – we got a dog – and there is a lot more I probably need to write about! Feel free to comment on your thoughts about change, and I’ll try and write again soon! Thanks for taking the time to read this one!

Adulting

Lifestyle

This coming week, I will be turning 44 years old. I have always hated celebrating birthdays – whether it’s my deep-rooted anxiety about getting older, or perhaps it’s my introvertedness and never wanting to be the center of attention – but I will say, this one does not seem so bad. I am usually a roller-coaster of emotions, so tomorrow (or this afternoon) I may feel differently; but right now, in this moment, I have to say I feel rather accepting (almost welcoming) of it.

Where am I at in my life? Married to a beautiful woman and I have two bright, talented boys. I have a job that surrounds me with incredible co-workers, affords me time with my family, and provides me a solid paycheck. Other than some steady hairloss, I am overall pretty healthy and have high aspirations to get into better shape still. I have personal and professional growth opportunities that make the coming year an exciting one for me.

Adulting is stressful and hard. We have bills (and very soon, taxes) to pay and self-care to maintain. We have young people to raise and elderly parents to care for. We have a tremendous number of responsibilities to balance on our plate every day.

What I have found helps my mental health the most is taking care of my physical health. I am starting to control my diet more regularly, take the daily vitamins and supplements my doctor recommends, exercise as often as I can (at least 3-4x weekly), and sleep about 7-8 hours a night.

I think personal development is also critical to help minimize stress. We have to keep growing as individuals and developing new skills. I read blogs daily and am currently on the book “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. While I don’t have much in the way of hobbies and interests; I get on the tennis court with my kids every chance I get, I try and do an early-morning coffee run with some friends once a month, and my boys and I love playing NHL 23 (Go Knights Go!) on the PS5 together.

While I think its significantly important for people to set goals, I’ll admit I never was very good at it. I encourage my kids to do it all the time; whether it be the grades they want to achieve in school this semester, how many songs they want to learn on the piano this month, etc.. For me, my career goals would basically be to finally open my own practice. I am terrified of having to deal with staffing issues, payroll and HR responsibilities, worrying about supply costs, complying with sterilization standards – basically everything I have been blissfully oblivious to these past nine years that have been somebody else’s concern. What I am learning though, is getting out of that comfort zone mentality and taking on risk is really what makes life worth living.

You made it through another day
You did it, let’s celebrate
~Sia

We have such little time here on Earth. I think as I get older, I think I am coming to realize, don’t sweat the small stuff. Find the people in your life you enjoy keeping company with, set some goals and work arduously towards achieving them, be sure to count your blessings – life is too short! I just wanted to throw a post out there today, sorry if it came off as random. I’ll hopefully be writing again real soon to give updates on my Exercise Expedition as well as sharing some exciting career news! Until then, enjoy your day and thank you for visiting this post!

Nascence

Lifestyle

My initial posts I am dedicating to topics that I believe define me as a person and/or have in someway greatly influenced my life. Even as I sit to write this, I am not entirely sure I know how or where to begin.

For the most part, I had a happy childhood. My upbringing was in a loving, hard-working, middle-class home. I do not remember ever wanting for much, but I was easily pleased. I was content with the small plastic toys I found at the bottom of cereal boxes, and pretty much played outside most afternoons with neighborhood kids. In middle school, I started collecting sports cards, discovering music, and became interested in video game consoles. My dad was (is?) an architect and my mother a customer service representative at a nearby bank. My siblings and I were fortunate enough to never go hungry, could always afford the school supplies we needed, and were blessed to have something to unwrap on birthdays and Christmas morning.

However, we were far from spoiled. For years, my mom did this thing where she would let us unwrap all the presents but only actually open up and play with one or two. The rest we were allowed to access throughout the year. I grew up thinking that was normal. It’s not. That frugality though, did (in some cruel way) teach me a lot about delayed gratification.

Come to think of it, I cannot recall any extravagances from my youth. Literally, ALL of our family vacations were to visit other family members – which was a short list of relatives and places. As a result of that, I do not have any experience camping, or skiing, or boating, or…doing a lot of stuff. I don’t mean to complain. I feel blessed for what I had and give thanks to my parents for all I was fortunate enough to have received. But the truth is, certain experiences I was bereft of, I am unfortunately starting to realize I am reluctant to offer to my own children.

A couple more memories that come to mind…I was ‘teased’ for brief periods of my life; in middle-school the popularity of the Aladdin movie made me an easy target (even though I wasn’t Middle Eastern?); and of course there was my ‘favorite’ Simpsons stereo-typical Indian ‘Apu’ character which, although I bore no physical resemblance to, did not stop some kids from wanting me to do the accent for. Elementary school was a bit worse as they took a foreign and unusual name like ‘Sulabh’ (phonetically ‘Sue-lub’) and ignorantly pronounced it ‘Slob’. The emotional trauma and scars from that likely led me to give my boys easier names to pronounce (i.e. ‘Ishaan’ and ‘Krish’).

In hindsight, maybe wearing vests wasn’t the best idea…

I remember in middle school the pressure to start smoking cigarettes started to emerge, as kids I was friends with started to form the habit. I was never tempted however, not because all the public media campaigns said not to, but rather that my parents never touched the stuff and because of that, smoking never appealed to me. It was a divisive thing however, I fell out of touch with those friends and started to find less…precarious (?) kids to associate with. To this day, I have never smoked a cigarette. Alcohol, totally different story (probably enough content there to merit another blog post of its own).

High school got a bit easier for me, if you can imagine that? Some might say, it was a ‘whole new world’…pun intended. But yeah, maybe because it was a fresh start; new faces, bigger stage and a bit easier to keep with the crowd you like, and distance yourself from the ones you don’t. Fresh off all the name calling from elementary and middle school, I briefly tried to adopt the nickname ‘Sal’ in high-school but after realizing I very easily could be confused with someone of Hispanic origin, I ultimately decided to try and make ‘Sulabh’ work.

For the most part, I kept my head down. I spoke in a previous post (Introvert) about not wanting any attention; and for the most part, I accomplished that through high school. I did have one memorable encounter where the kid next to me in chemistry class somehow took notice of the fact that my Payless bought shoes were actually (and ironically?) branded ‘Nucleus’ and he would go on and announce it to the whole class by randomly yelling out the word and then pointing directly to my shoes. Like I said, no extravagances….sigh.

College brought on a whole lot of new experiences for me. I will save that era for another post, probably something like Nascence Part II. I hope you enjoyed the post. Hopefully someone out there can relate to some of the experiences I had growing up. Always feel free to share! Thanks, see you soon!