I took a career break to travel in my 40s, but even that exhausted me. I reparented myself — and finally learned to slow down.

Bogdan Hofbauer

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Himal Mandalia, 45, who lives in London. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I had a difficult childhood , and I missed a lot of school. When I hit my 20s, I didn't know what I wanted to be, so I floated between jobs. By age 32, in 2012, I'd reached a low point and felt my life was going nowhere. What I achieved in the following 10 years went beyond my wildest dreams. In 2013, I landed a job as a software developer for a