If there is one thing an unexpected layoff will do, it will force you into a retrospective you probably never planned to have.
Life, career, faith, relationships, money, time, identity. Suddenly, all of it feels a little closer to the surface.
For years, it is easy to tell yourself that certain things will get your attention later, when work slows down, when life gets less busy, when there is finally enough margin. Then your calendar changes overnight. The meetings disappear, Slack goes quiet, the projects you were thinking about yesterday are no longer yours to worry about, and suddenly there is space where there used to be noise.
It is not necessarily the kind of space you wanted, but it does make you pay attention.
That has been my experience recently. A layoff has a way of exposing what has been sitting under the surface for a while, and for me, a few things came into focus pretty quickly.
Faith becomes much more practical when life stops cooperating
Losing a job is difficult to process because your mind immediately splits in two directions. One side is trying to understand what happened. The other has already opened LinkedIn, updated the résumé, revamped the portfolio, and ran a quick financial analysis on how long you can provide for your family.
Your heart may still be trying to catch up, but your brain has already went into project plan mode.
I have been through difficult career transitions before, and this time felt different. The grief was still there. So were sadness, uncertainty, and anxiety. I do not think faith removes those emotions, nor do I think we are supposed to pretend they are not there, but it completely changed how I handled them.
I handed the situation over to God much faster than I have in the past.
That does not mean I suddenly understood why it happened. I still do not. It does not mean I know what comes next. I do not know that either. What it means is that I trust there is more happening than what I can currently see.
God often does some of His deepest work in the parts of life we would never choose for ourselves. Scripture is full of people who were formed in waiting, uncertainty, disappointment, wilderness, loss, and seasons that probably felt nothing like progress while they were living through them.
We usually want clarity first. We want to understand the purpose, see the outcome, and know how everything is going to work out. Then we will trust the process. Sometimes refinement happens before understanding.
There are parts of us personally that are difficult to confront when everything is going well. Our dependence on work for identity. Our need for control. Our attachment to plans. The things we keep postponing. The people we keep meaning to call. Even our understanding of what contentment actually means.
Discomfort has a way of revealing all that.
I do not believe every hard situation comes with an immediate explanation. Sometimes we may not understand what God was doing until much later. In some cases, maybe we never fully understand it on this side of life.
But I do believe these seasons can shape us if we are willing and open.
They can deepen trust. They can expose misplaced priorities. They can soften parts of us that have become rigid. They can remind us how little control we actually have and how much peace comes from accepting that.
For someone who has spent much of his career solving problems for a living, admitting that some problems are outside my control is still an ongoing lesson. Your roadmap and God’s roadmap rarely ever align.
Human connection matters more than your network
Another thing that became clear to me is how much I value real human connection, and how easy it is to let it fade.
We talk a lot about networking, especially when someone is looking for work. Build your network. Stay visible. Engage with people. Make connections. Reach out to former colleagues.
There is nothing wrong with any of that, but I think we sometimes confuse having access to people with actually having relationships with people.
Those are not the same thing.
Most people are busy. Work takes a large amount of attention, then there is parenting, marriage, appointments, school activities, home projects, errands, and everything else competing for the remaining hours in the day. Over time, relationships become something we maintain through text messages and social media.
We see someone’s vacation photos, their new job announcement, the birthday notification, maybe a picture of their dog, and we feel like we have stayed somewhat connected.
This became especially obvious after the layoff because one of the first pieces of advice you hear is to reach out to your network.
People have been incredibly gracious, and I am grateful for that. But the experience also forced me to ask myself a slightly uncomfortable question.
Why do we so often wait until we need something to reconnect with people?
I do not want the primary reason I call someone to be because I am searching for a job, need an introduction, or want advice. I want to be better about calling people when there is no ask attached to it.
- How are you really doing?
- What has been difficult lately?
- Want to grab coffee?
- How is your family?
- What are you excited about?
- How can I pray for you?
Even phone calls feel strangely personal now. Somewhere along the way, calling someone without warning started to feel like showing up at their house without knocking.
So this is something I want to change.
I want more lunches, more coffee, more phone calls, and more time sitting across from people with no objective other than catching up. I want to be more intentional about old friendships and more open to new ones.
Some of the most meaningful conversations I have had recently had nothing to do with finding another job.
I think I needed those conversations more.
Time has a way of exposing what you actually value
For years, I have had a running list of things I wanted to do when I had more time.
Write more. Build a few ideas. Read certain books. Spend more time studying Scripture. Reconnect with people. Finish projects I had started and quietly abandoned.
Apparently, “when I have more time” is where hobbies and personal projects go to die.
A layoff removes a surprising amount of urgency from your calendar. That can feel uncomfortable, but it also gives you a chance to see how much of your identity has become connected to productivity.
When someone asks what we do, most of us answer with our occupation.
I am a designer.
I am a product leader.
I work in technology.
Those things describe part of my life, and I care deeply about them, but they should never describe the whole thing.
I am also a husband, a father, a friend, a Christian, a creator, a person who spends too much money on coffee equipment, and someone who continues to believe that buying the right notebook will finally fix my organizational problems.
A job can disappear overnight.
Those other parts of your identity are still there.
In some ways, this season has given those parts more room to breathe.
Another unexpected side effect of having more time is discovering the archaeological record of your own ambitions.
Half-written articles. Domains you bought because you were definitely going to build something. Figma files of half-thought designs. Ideas sitting in Notion untouched for years.
I found several projects that I still cared about, and that surprised me.
They were not abandoned because I stopped believing in them. They were abandoned because other things kept becoming more urgent.
Some of those projects are getting attention again.
I am writing more. I am thinking more seriously about the things I want to build. I am spending more time on work that is meaningful to me, even when it has nothing to do with finding another job.
That has been healthy.
There is something freeing about creating without first asking whether it belongs in a portfolio, improves a résumé, or advances a career.
Sometimes you should make something because you believe it should exist.
Contentment looks different when certainty disappears
This may be the hardest lesson of all.
I would still prefer to know exactly what comes next (I think we all do). I would love a clear timeline, a signed offer letter waiting in my inbox, and a neat explanation for how this all fits together.
But contentment cannot depend entirely on circumstances. For me, this season has become an exercise in learning how to live with uncertainty without letting it consume every part of the day.
There is time for job searching, interviews, networking, preparing, and figuring out the next chapter.
There also has to be time for being present.
Time to have breakfast with my family. Time to pray. Time to study Scripture. Time to go for a walk. Time to work on something I care about. Time to call a friend. Time to sit outside with a cup of coffee and resist checking LinkedIn for twelve minutes.
That last one is still a work in progress.
I keep coming back to the idea of refinement because I think that is what many uncomfortable seasons can become.
Refinement does not always feel productive while it is happening. Sometimes it feels slow. Sometimes it feels unfair. Sometimes it feels like nothing is happening at all.
But if you are willing to let God work through it, discomfort can clarify what comfort allowed you to ignore.
It can change how you see your work.
It can change how you see people.
It can change how tightly you hold your plans.
It can change what you think deserves your attention.
I would not have chosen the layoff, and I am not going to pretend I am grateful for every part of it.
But I also do not want to miss what God may be doing through it.
My career matters to me. The work matters. The next opportunity matters.
But it is becoming clearer to me that the person I am becoming during this season matters too, and that may be the most important part of all this.
