One of the biggest decisions I ever made involved saying yes to a future I could not see and no to the security I already had.
That sounds brave when written neatly in a sentence. At the time, it mostly felt terrifying.
When I moved to Jacksonville, I was not just changing addresses. I was walking away from a job, a paycheck, and the kind of professional identity that had defined me for years. For the first time in a long time, I had no clear answer when people asked the simple question: “So what are you going to do?”
The honest answer was: I had no idea.
I assumed, perhaps a little too confidently, that something in communications would open up fairly quickly. After all, experience ought to count for something. Years of work ought to matter. Surely there would be a logical next step.
There wasn’t.
Weeks turned into months, and applications produced very little except silence, occasional rejection, and the growing realization that the world was not waiting eagerly for my résumé.
That period teaches humility in ways nobody enjoys.
You start measuring time differently when you are unemployed. A normal Tuesday can suddenly feel heavy because it carries the same unanswered questions as Monday. Every interview possibility feels oversized. Every dead end feels personal, even when you know it shouldn’t.
Eventually, because standing still was not helping anything, I started substitute teaching. That was never part of some master plan.
I did not arrive thinking, “This is clearly where life is taking me.” It was more practical than that — work was work, bills existed, and I needed movement instead of another day staring at possibilities that never arrived.
But something happened inside those classrooms.
Somewhere between managing students, surviving unfamiliar lesson plans, and figuring out very quickly that young people can sense uncertainty from across a room, I began to realize I did not hate being there.
In fact, I liked it more than I expected. Then liking it became considering it. And considering it slowly became conviction.
Teaching had never been the road I thought I was on, yet somehow it became the road under my feet.
What I learned from that season is that some of life’s most important decisions do not immediately reward you with clarity. Sometimes they first reward you with discomfort, doubt, and a long stretch where nothing looks settled. But if you stay open, those uncertain seasons can quietly redirect everything.
Had the original plan worked quickly, I might never have stepped into a classroom except as a visitor. Instead, what began as unemployment and uncertainty became the doorway to a career I had never expected.
And sometimes growth arrives exactly that way: not through the plan you trusted, but through the backup plan you almost didn’t take.
Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
