God Help Me!

Over my vacation I read the most wonderful book by James Patterson called Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas. It is a story in which the main lesson is that live is short and each day needs to be lived to its fullest. One of the things that struck me most in this book was the lesson of the five balls. It goes like this:
"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls - family, health, friends, integrity - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls you will have the beginnings of balance in your life."
I truly think it is impossible to be in the profession I am in and follow this lesson and it scares the hell out of me. What scares me even more is that I have spent my ENTIRE life to get to the point I am at and it doesn't make me happy. Granted there are rewarding parts of my job and I really like helping animals, but it has the most amazing way of being unbelievably DRAINING of my time and mental and emotional energy. I find it hard to deal with the public so much on a daily basis, especially when I am not in the mood to be all happy and cheery. And I am SO unbelivably sick of people's stupidity. I can't tell you how many times me and the other doctors have had to stay late (particularly on Friday nights) because people decide to let a problem their pet has fester and fester until it is so bad that they are terrified the animal won't get through the weekend, that we end up spending time that should be for ourselves and our families trying to fix a poor innocent animal that is suffering because of someone's stupidity. I also have recently had an incident where something I did really pissed off a client to the point where she tore me apart on the phone and never wants to come back to me again. This has been so unbelievably emotionally trying for me - I have lost sleep at night hearing her voice in my head and I am not one that is easy to forgive myself for not being perfect. I KNOW that I can not emotionally handle things like this happening for years and years, and I know this won't be the first time it does.
What if I was not meant to do this for the rest of my life? I am hoping and praying that this is not the case but I'm scared because I feel like it SHOULD be making me happy. And I am a person inclined to just be miserable for the rest of my life because everyone is so "proud" of me and I feel that if I went in another direction it would be a complete waste of all the money, time, support and energy that so many I love have put into me and my career, particularly my parents. I am so scared and so uncertain of my future. I can honestly say that something I thought would make me happy doesn't - it makes me exhausted, bitter, and miserable. My mom told me the other day that she thinks I am borderline depressed and that maybe in the future I should see someone - and she is 100% right. When you spend your whole life working towards a goal and then when you finally get there you realize that what you thought would be so perfect isn't, it would make anyone sad I think. I honestly don't know what I would do if it wasn't for my husband who brings an unbelievable amount of happiness to my life and keeps me smiling and realizing that I am truly blessed. My family, friends and pets remind me of the same. And despite my unhappiness I have made such a cherished friend in Sue that I am thankful to God that I did come to MAC. She is so encouraging and is a constant reminder that maybe I'm not as bad a doctor as I sometimes feel I am. It doesn't keep me from being scared though - I really don't know where my life is going. I definitely can't see myself doing this until retirement. I will burn out WAY before that if not end up in a hospital first. Thank God there are many other venues one can take with a DVM - like residencies, research, etc. I do admit in vet school I had a strong instinct to specialize (particularly in clin path or radiology) but since I had wanted to be a small animal vet since I was 5, I pushed those instincts away. Now I am regretting it. Anyway, God please help me sort out my thoughts and put me on the right path to not only best utilize my DVM and my personal attributes and abilities, but also on one where I can be happy and content with my life. If such a path exists, please clearly point me in that direction and help me along the way. I don't want to be sad or scared anymore, and boy am I ever both right now.