Some questions assume life works more cleanly than it usually does.
“What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?”
I wish I had a dozen perfect examples lined up, but life doesn’t usually hand us those. Even the times I followed my gut and things turned out well, they didn’t turn out perfectly. There were complications. Doubts. Detours. Moments when I wondered if my gut had left out a few important details.
Teaching is one of those examples.
Somewhere along the way, I knew I was supposed to pursue it. My gut was pointing me in that direction long before the rest of me was ready to listen. Even then, it took some convincing. I didn’t step into the classroom with a beam of heavenly light shining down and a choir singing in the background.
And teaching has not been perfect. There are days when I wonder why I’m doing it. There are days when the challenges feel bigger than the rewards. There are days when I leave exhausted, frustrated or convinced that I could have done a hundred things better.
But then there are the students.
There is the moment when a student finally understands something. There is the reluctant writer who discovers he has something to say. There is the student who comes back later and lets you know that something you said mattered more than you realized. There is English. There is writing. There is the challenge of taking words, ideas and young people seriously.
So, no, it hasn’t been perfect.
But it has been right.
Daryl is another one.
I wasn’t divorced very long before we made the plunge into marriage. From the outside, I’m sure it looked fast. Maybe it was fast. Maybe there were people who wondered whether I was thinking clearly.
But I knew.
That doesn’t mean everything has been easy. Marriage never is. There have been ups and downs, challenges, hard seasons and moments that required more grace than either one of us probably expected. But through all of it, I have never wanted to step away from the marriage. I have never looked at Daryl and thought I would trade her for someone else or some easier version of life.
She is my soulmate. Not because everything is effortless, but because even when it isn’t effortless, she is still the one.
Maybe that wasn’t my gut.
Maybe it was my heart.
But I’m not sure there’s much difference. Sometimes the gut is just the heart telling the truth before the mind has finished arguing.
And in both cases — teaching and Daryl — my gut didn’t lead me to something perfect.
It led me to something worth it.
That may be as close to “exactly right” as life usually gets.
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Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
