Category: Reflections

  • Becoming Careful About What Enters the Soul

    Becoming Careful About What Enters the Soul

    Years ago, for reasons I could not fully explain, I found myself moving in the opposite direction of everyone around me.

    People were talking about The Sopranos. They loved it.

    I tried.

    More than once.

    I could appreciate the acting. I could see the craftsmanship. I understood why people were drawn to it.

    But I never enjoyed it.

    Then came The Wire.

    Again, I tried.

    Everyone said it was brilliant. Everyone said it was important. Everyone said I simply needed to give it another chance.

    I did.

    Several times.

    Yet something in me remained unmoved.

    Then came Breaking Bad.

    The same story.

    The same recommendations.

    The same praise.

    And the same feeling that this was not for me.

    At the time, I thought perhaps I was missing something.

    Maybe I was.

    But as the years passed, I began to realize I was not rejecting great storytelling.

    I was becoming sensitive to what those stories required me to sit with,

    so many of them invited me to spend hours living inside darkness.

    Crime, violence, manipulation, corruption, and Greed.

    The slow collapse of the human spirit.

    The older I became, the less interested I was in making those places my home, even temporarily.

    What surprised me most was that the change did not stop there.

    Movies I once enjoyed began losing their appeal.

    Military films.

    Action movies.

    Stories built around guns, revenge, and destruction.

    Eventually I found myself turning away from anything that seemed determined to convince me that darkness was depth.

    Then I began noticing something else.

    Many stories no longer seemed interested in heroes.

    Even stories that claimed to be about heroes often spent most of their time glorifying villains.

    The villain was smarter.

    The villain was more interesting.

    The villain got the best lines.

    The villain became the person audiences secretly admired.

    Goodness became boring.

    Decency became weakness.

    Kindness became naïveté.

    And somewhere along the way, I realized I was growing tired.

    Not physically.

    Spiritually.

    I began asking myself a simple question.

    What am I feeding my mind?

    We understand this concept when it comes to food.

    No one is surprised when a person feels different after changing their diet.

    Yet we often act as though the soul can consume endless negativity without consequence.

    Hour after hour.

    Day after day.

    Year after year.

    Violence.

    Conflict.

    Anger.

    Fear.

    Contempt.

    Cynicism.

    Then we wonder why peace feels so difficult to find.

    So I started making changes.

    Not dramatic changes.

    Just intentional ones.

    I became more selective about what I watched.

    More selective about what I listened to.

    More selective about the conversations I participated in.

    I began paying attention to the words I spoke.

    I tried to spend less time discussing people and more time understanding them.

    Less time dwelling on problems and more time looking for solutions.

    Less time feeding outrage and more time feeding gratitude.

    Something changed.

    Not overnight.

    But slowly.

    Quietly.

    The way sunrise arrives.

    You do not notice it all at once.

    Then suddenly the darkness is no longer where it was.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • If You Could Live Anywhere in the World, Where Would It Be?

    If You Could Live Anywhere in the World, Where Would It Be?

    If I could live anywhere in the world, I would still choose Albuquerque.

    And I am proud to say that.

    I know that might sound strange to some people.

    There are places with bigger skylines.

    Places with more water.

    Places people put on postcards, bucket lists, and travel shows.

    But I have lived in different places around the world, and sometimes the place you choose says more than the place you came from.

    I was raised in the Midwest.

    That part of the country has its own beauty. Its own rhythm. Its own kind of strength. But it is also the home of tornado alley, and I learned early that I do not need the sky turning dark and angry above me to feel alive.

    I am not a fan of hurricanes.

    I am not a fan of earthquakes either.

    Yes, I know New Mexico has earthquakes, but not like the West Coast. And yes, we have monsoon season, but to me, that does not compare to the hurricanes of the East Coast.

    The constant rain of the Northwest would be too much for me.

    Some people need green everywhere.

    Some people need water close enough to hear it.

    I understand that.

    But I have fallen in love with the high desert.

    There is something about the open sky here.

    Something about the mountains standing in the distance like witnesses.

    Something about the way the light changes everything it touches.

    Albuquerque has a quiet honesty to it. It does not try too hard to convince you of what it is. It simply is.

    There is beauty in that.

    There is also the food.

    The kind of food that does not feel like decoration, but memory. Food with heat, history, and personality. Food that tells you where you are before anyone says a word.

    Green chile does that.

    Red chile does that.

    A plate here can feel like a map.

    A reminder that place is not just where you sleep at night. Place is what seasons you. What teaches your tongue. What slows your pace. What makes you look up and notice the sky.

    I did not end up in Albuquerque by accident and stay by mistake.

    I chose it.

    And if I had to choose again, I would choose it again.

    Not because it is perfect.

    No place is.

    But because it fits something in me.

    The high desert has a way of making room for a person. It gives you space to think. Space to breathe. Space to become quieter without becoming smaller.

    And maybe that is what home is after a while.

    Not the place everyone else understands.

    Not the place with the best reputation.

    Not the place that looks most impressive from the outside.

    But the place where your spirit unclenches.

    The place where the weather, the food, the land, and the light begin to feel like part of your own language.

    For me, that place is Albuquerque.

    The high desert.

    The mountains.

    The chile.

    The wide sky.

    The quiet invitation to keep becoming.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • Is a Little Chaos Actually Good for Us?

    Is a Little Chaos Actually Good for Us?

    I think a little chaos can be good for us.

    Not the kind that destroys everything and leaves people wounded trying to gather pieces of themselves from the floor.

    But the kind that interrupts comfort.

    The kind that knocks on the door and says, Are you sure this is the best you can do?

    I am someone who likes consistency; it’s comfortable

    I like knowing what works.

    I understand the old saying, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

    There is wisdom in that. Not everything needs to be touched. Not everything needs to be changed just for the sake of change. Some things are steady because they have earned the right to be steady.

    But sometimes something can work and still not be as good as it could be.

    Sometimes something can be fine and still be slow and inefficient.

    and still holding us back in ways we do not notice, because we have grown comfortable with its shape.

    That is where chaos has its place.

    Chaos reveals things.

    Problems reveal things.

    A disruption can show us where the weak spots are. It can show us what we have been avoiding, what we have outgrown, what we have been calling peace when it was really just familiarity.

    I do not always like that in the moment.

    Most growth does not feel like growth while it is happening.

    Sometimes it feels like frustration.

    Sometimes it feels like an inconvenience.

    Sometimes it feels like being forced to learn something you would not have chosen to learn on your own.

    But afterward, when the dust settles, you can look back and realize the chaos did not come only to disturb you.

    Sometimes it came to sharpen you.

    Sometimes it came to make you more honest.

    Sometimes it came to show you that the way you had always done something was not the only way.

    And maybe not even the best way.

    There is a kind of growth that only comes when life refuses to let us stay too comfortable.

    A little chaos can make us pay attention.

    It can make us adjust.

    It can make us build better systems, ask better questions, and stop confusing survival with success.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • What’s the Best Way to Deal with Negative Thoughts?

    What’s the Best Way to Deal with Negative Thoughts?

    The best way to deal with negative thoughts is not to pretend they are not there.

    I know that because I have tried.

    I have tried to push them down.

    Tried to laugh them off.

    I tried to tell myself I was fine when I knew I wasn’t 

    It worked for a while.

    Until it didn’t.

    It could be anything: a word, a look, clutter, anything 

    A moment that should not have mattered as much as it did.

    And suddenly all those buried thoughts, all that hurt, all that anger, all that disappointment came rushing out at once. Sometimes toward someone who did not deserve to receive what I had refused to deal with.

    That is the danger of burying things.

    They do not stay buried.

    Negative thoughts are not always the enemy. Sometimes they are messengers. Sometimes they are telling us there is something we have not faced, something we have not grieved, something we have not forgiven, something we have been carrying too long without admitting how heavy it has become.

    The first step is to deal with them.

    Not while you are in the middle of the fire.

    Not while your emotions are loud and your judgment is clouded.

    But when you can sit with yourself honestly.

    When you can ask, Why did that hurt me? Why did that thought come back? What am I afraid of? What am I still holding onto?

    There is strength in being able to sit alone with your thoughts.

    But there is also wisdom in knowing when not to sit with them alone forever.

    There is nothing wrong with talking to someone.

    For me, it took A counselor.

    Someone safe enough to hear you without making you feel small.

    I know sometimes that sounds like a lot. Especially when you are used to keeping things to yourself. Especially when silence has become a kind of armor. But silence can also become a prison if we never let anything out.

    Negative thoughts are like poison when they stay trapped inside you.

    They change you

    They make love feel suspicious.

    They make peace feel temporary.

    So the best way I know to deal with negative thoughts is to stop pretending they are harmless just because no one else can see them.

    Name them.

    Sit with them.

    Let the emotion pass long enough for you to think clearly.

    Then deal with what is underneath.

    And when it becomes too heavy, talk to someone.

    That is not a weakness.

    That is maintenance of the soul.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • To All the Men Called Dad

    To All the Men Called Dad

    To all the men who answer to Pop, Pops, Dad, Daddy, Father, or even “The Old Man.”

    Happy Father’s Day.

    Most of us do not ask for recognition. We do not keep score. We simply do what needs to be done.

    We wake up early. Stay up late. Carry worries we rarely speak aloud. We fix things, provide what we can, protect who we love, and keep moving even when we are tired.

    Much of what fathers do goes unnoticed because, when it is done well, it looks ordinary. The lights stay on. The bills get paid. The advice is there when needed. The steady hand remains available even when no one thinks to thank it.

    That is the nature of fatherhood. Much of the work happens quietly.

    But we know.

    We know the sacrifices made, the opportunities passed by, the extra hours worked, the fears swallowed, and the promises kept.

    So today, take the day.

    Take a breath.

    Sit in your favorite chair. Enjoy your coffee a little longer. Watch the game. Fire up the grill. Take a nap. Spend time with the people you love.

    The work will be there tomorrow.

    Today, give yourself a moment to appreciate the man in the mirror.

    You have earned it.

    Happy Father’s Day

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • Who Are You Most Inspired By?

    Who Are You Most Inspired By?

    The person who inspires me most is Fred Rogers.

    Not because he was famous.

    Not because generations of children grew up watching him.

    And not because he seemed to have all the answers.

    He inspires me because he knew exactly who he was and never seemed interested in becoming someone else.

    In a world that often rewards loud voices, he spoke softly.

    In a world that celebrates outrage, he chose kindness.

    In a culture that often mistakes cynicism for wisdom, he believed people were worth caring about.

    What strikes me most is that he did what he truly loved. He found a way to use his gifts in the service of others and then spent decades doing exactly that. He did not seem to chase trends, popularity, or approval. He held fast to his convictions, whether the crowd agreed or not.

    That kind of consistency is rare.

    Many of us spend years trying to figure out who we are. Others know who they are but are afraid to live it. The pressure to fit in, to be accepted, or to be successful on someone else’s terms can be overwhelming.

    Yet he seemed content to walk a different path.

    A path built on the belief that every person has value.

    As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to admire that more than talent, wealth, or fame. The people who leave the deepest mark on the world are often the ones who make others feel seen. They remind us that kindness is not weakness, that compassion requires courage, and that treating people with dignity is a worthy life’s work.

    When I think about the kind of person I hope to become, I don’t think about being the smartest person in the room or the most successful.

    I think about being useful.

    I think about leaving people better than I found them.

    That is why he inspires me.

    Not because he changed the world through power.

    But because he changed it through service, one person at a time.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • Chewies: A Request from a Friend

    Chewies: A Request from a Friend

    I made these Chewies at the request of a very dear friend, the same friend who encouraged me to write my first book when I wasn’t entirely sure I had one in me. Long before there was a blog, before there were essays about food and memory, she was one of the people who believed I had something worth saying.

    She lives in South Carolina, a place I sometimes think of as the Old South. Not because it is frozen in time, but because the past still lingers there—in the food, the stories, and the traditions that continue to find their way to the table.

    When she shared this recipe with me, I did what many of us do once we’ve reached a certain age. I looked at the ingredients and started counting risks instead of blessings.

    Butter.

    Brown sugar.

    More brown sugar.

    Pecans.

    I read the measurements and immediately began complaining about the health consequences of eating something this rich.

    She laughed.

    Not a polite laugh. Not a sympathetic laugh. The kind of laugh that comes from someone who already knows how the story ends.

    “You’ll love it,” she said. “You’ll probably eat the whole pan in one day.”

    I sincerely hope I don’t.

    These days, I try not to burden my closest friends with every ache, every doctor’s visit, or every reminder that time moves in only one direction. We all carry enough. I’d rather spend our conversations talking about books, grandchildren, old memories, and recipes passed from one hand to another.

    And that is what these chewies feel like to me.

    A gift.

    A reminder that friendship often arrives in simple forms. Sometimes it is a phone call. Sometimes it is encouragement when you’re afraid to begin. Sometimes it is a recipe shared across state lines with the confidence that you’ll understand why it matters once you take the first bite.

    Now, I still don’t believe these chewies qualify as healthy eating. In fact, after reading the ingredient list, I’m fairly certain they qualify as the exact opposite. But friendship requires sacrifice, and if my friend was kind enough to recommend this recipe to me, the least I can do is share it with others.

    So that is my plan.

    I will make a pan and share them with some friends, and we can all be unhealthy together.

    At our age, that may not be the wisest decision. But there is something to be said for sitting around a table with people you care about, laughing at old stories, sharing good food, and pretending not to notice who reached for the second piece first.

    Sweet, rich, unapologetic, and deeply rooted in the Gullah Geechee tradition, these chewies are the kind of dessert that reminds us that not every recipe was created to be healthy. Some recipes were created to bring people together, to celebrate, to comfort, and most of all, to be remembered.

    Gullah Geechee Chewies 

    Serves: 10–12

    Ingredients

    • 170 g unsalted butter
    • 660 g packed light or dark brown sugar
    • 3 large eggs, beaten
    • 7.5 mL vanilla extract (1½ teaspoons)
    • 360 g pecans, chopped
    • 375 g self-rising flour
    • 30 g powdered (confectioners’) sugar, for dusting

    Homemade Self-Rising Flour (375 g)

    If you don’t have self-rising flour, whisk together:

    • 375 g all-purpose flour
    • 18 g baking powder
    • 3 g fine salt

    Method

    1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
    2. Grease either:
      • a 23 × 33 cm baking dish for thicker chewies, or
      • a 26.5 × 39 cm jelly-roll pan for thinner bars.
    3. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
    4. Stir in the brown sugar until smooth and fully combined.
    5. Remove from the heat and allow the mixture to cool for a few minutes.
    6. Stir in the beaten eggs and vanilla extract.
    7. Fold in the chopped pecans.
    8. Add the self-rising flour and mix until just combined.
    9. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
    10. Bake:
      • 25 minutes for the jelly-roll pan, or
      • 40 minutes for the deeper baking dish.
    11. The edges should be golden brown and the center set. A skewer inserted into the center should come out slightly damp.
    12. Dust lightly with the powdered sugar.
    13. Allow the chewies to cool completely in the pan before cutting.
    14. For easier slicing, turn the slab out onto a cutting board and cut into squares.

    Cook’s Notes

    • Toast the pecans at 175°C for 8–10 minutes before chopping for a deeper flavor.
    • These chewies are even better the next day, when the flavors have had time to settle and deepen.
    • Traditional chewies should remain slightly fudgy in the center. Avoid overbaking; they will continue to set as they cool.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • What Juneteenth Means to Me

    What Juneteenth Means to Me

    I will be honest.
    I do not remember hearing much about Juneteenth when I was young.
    Maybe that was because I was from the Midwest. Maybe it was because, for a long time, Juneteenth was mostly spoken of as a Texas celebration. Maybe it was because some parts of our history were passed down in whispers, while other parts were left for us to find when we were older and strong enough to carry them.
    But when I did learn what Juneteenth meant, I felt something heavy settle in me.
    It saddened me.
    The kind of sadness that comes when you realize freedom was not only denied, but delayed. When you realize some people knew slavery had ended and still refused to release those who had already paid for this country with their bodies. Their labor. Their children. Their names. Their grief.
    It is one thing to know slavery existed.
    It is another thing to understand that even after freedom was declared, some still refused to let enslaved people go.
    That is the part that stayed with me.
    Those additional years.
    Those families were still held in fields, kitchens, barns, and houses while the world had already shifted on paper.
    And yet, inside that sadness, there was also relief.
    Relief that someone finally came. On June 19, 1865, word finally reached the enslaved people in Texas that they were free.
    Not free from struggle.
    But free from legal bondage.
    Free from being owned.
    And for that, we remember.
    For that, we gather.
    For that, we cook.
    Juneteenth, to me, has never felt like a holiday that should be reduced to a sale, a slogan, or a color palette. It is not simply a summer event. It is not just another reason to put something on a calendar and call it progress.
    It is ours.
    That does not mean others cannot stand beside us. I believe they can. I believe they should if they come to understand that this is not a costume, not a marketing angle, not a borrowed celebration to be emptied of its meaning.
    Juneteenth is not about making everyone comfortable.
    It is about telling the truth.
    It is about the last day of slavery, reaching the last people who were still being held in its grip. It is about delayed freedom and the people who survived long enough to hear it named.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?

    Do you think humans will ever colonize Mars? What would life there actually look like?

    Yes, I do

    But I do not believe we will go there because we suddenly became wiser.

    I do not believe we will go because humanity looked up at the night sky, humbled by the smallness of our place in the universe, and decided to become better stewards of existence.

    That would be a beautiful story.

    I don’t think it is the true one.

    I think we will go because Earth is becoming harder to live on.

    Or because something valuable is found there.

    Or because the wealthy decide the future should have a private entrance.

    That sounds harsh, maybe. But history has taught me to be careful with any dream sold as progress when profit is standing somewhere in the room, quiet and smiling.

    Mars will not simply be a new world.

    It will be a mirror.

    And what it reflects may not flatter us.

    We like to imagine colonizing Mars as some grand human achievement. A flag planted in red dust. A bright dome under a strange sky. A child born beneath another planet’s sun. We imagine clean machines, brave scientists, heroic explorers, and the swelling music of destiny.

    But I wonder what life there would actually look like after the cameras are gone.

    Who gets to breathe the cleanest air?

    Who gets the safest shelter?

    Who owns the water?

    Who owns the land beneath a dome they did not build with their own hands?

    Who works outside when the suits fail?

    Who cleans the filters?

    Who repairs the machines?

    Who risks the radiation?

    Who serves the meals?

    Who digs, carries, installs, maintains, and disappears from the official story?

    Because that is the part we often skip.

    Every empire has loved the language of discovery.

    But somebody always does the labor.

    Somebody always pays the cost.

    If we build a world on Mars, I fear it will not be a world of equals. I fear it will become what so much of Earth already is: a place divided between those who own the future and those who are hired to survive inside it.

    The extremely wealthy above.

    The workers below.

    Different planet.

    Same old arrangement.

    Maybe the rich will live in beautiful enclosed cities with artificial gardens, private schools, controlled weather, and windows facing the stars. Maybe they will speak of bravery and innovation while sipping water recycled by systems they did not design, repair, or understand.

    And maybe the poor will live in tighter quarters, in service corridors, in work units, in maintenance bays, in the parts of the colony no brochure ever shows.

    Maybe their bodies will be used as proof that the settlement is possible.

    Maybe their sacrifice will be called an opportunity.

    That is usually how these things go.

    And still, the saddest part to me is this: much of the technology required to make Mars livable could probably teach us how to better care for Earth.

    Closed-loop systems.

    Clean energy.

    Water conservation.

    Food grown in difficult conditions.

    Air filtration.

    Waste reduction.

    Efficient housing.

    All this genius is aimed at surviving in a hostile world. In contrast, the world that has already given us oceans, forests, rain, soil, breath, and morning keeps being treated like something disposable.

    There is something almost tragic in that.

    The human imagination is powerful enough to dream of living on Mars, but not disciplined enough to stop poisoning the place where we already live.

    We can imagine domes on another planet before we can imagine justice on this one.

    We can imagine terraforming Mars before we can imagine repairing Flint, cooling overheated cities, feeding hungry people, or protecting the only atmosphere that has ever held us without a machine.

    That bothers me.

    Because Mars is not home.

    Not yet.

    Maybe not ever in the way Earth is home.

    Mars has no ancestral memory for us. No childhood streets. No grandmother’s kitchen. No rain against the window. No trees bending in summer wind. No soil holds the bones of our people. No rivers that know our names.

    Earth has carried us.

    And we have treated her like a thing to be conquered.

    So what makes us think Mars would be spared?

    That is the question I cannot shake.

    If the same hunger goes with us, the same greed, the same need to own, extract, divide, rank, and consume, then Mars will not be a fresh start.

    It will be a red continuation.

    We will take our flags.

    Our markets.

    Our class systems.

    Our gated communities.

    Our labor exploitation.

    Our myths of progress.

    And we will call it civilization.

    Maybe there will be beauty there, too. I do not want to deny that. There will be people who go for the right reasons. Scientists. Engineers. Dreamers. Workers are trying to build something better than what they left behind. Children born there will look at Earth as a blue light in the sky and wonder what it felt like to stand beneath open rain.

    There will be courage.

    There will be loneliness.

    There will be an invention.

    There will be grief.

    There will be music, eventually. Food, eventually. Rituals, eventually. Some new version of humanity is trying to make meaning under a sky that does not yet belong to memory.

    But unless we change the spirit we carry with us, the colony will inherit the disease of the old world.

    That is what I believe.

    Humans may colonize Mars.

    But the harder question is whether we will deserve to.

    Because leaving Earth is not the same as outgrowing what we did here.

    A rocket can escape gravity.

    It cannot escape greed.

    It cannot escape history.

    It cannot escape the human habit of turning every promised land into property.

    So yes, I believe we may live on Mars one day.

    But I hope, before that happens, we learn to live better here.

    Because if we cannot honor the planet that made us, I do not trust what we will become on the planet that must be manufactured to keep us alive.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times

  • What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?

    What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?

    I would tell him to come home to himself sooner.

    Not home as a place.

    Home as a knowing.

    Home is that quiet room inside you where your own voice still lives before the world teaches you to mistrust it.

    I would tell my 20-year-old self to stop spending so much of his life auditioning for people who were never going to choose him, honestly. Stop bending yourself into shapes that do not fit your spirit. Stop mistaking acceptance for love. Stop confusing attention with belonging.

    Because there is a difference.

    And learning that difference can cost you years.

    At twenty, you think being liked will save you.

    You think if you become easier, funnier, quieter, louder, more agreeable, more useful, more available, more whatever the room seems to require, then maybe people will keep you around. Maybe they will see you. Maybe they will decide you are worth knowing.

    But some people do not dislike you for failing to become enough.

    Some people were never interested in getting to know you at all.

    They were interested in what you could provide.

    Your time.

    Your loyalty.

    Your attention.

    Your silence.

    Your willingness to shrink yourself so they would not have to make room.

    That is a hard lesson.

    But it is a freeing one.

    I would tell him this: do not waste your best years trying to become acceptable to people who benefit from you not knowing your worth.

    Spend that time discovering who you are.

    Not who you perform.

    Not who you pretend to be when you are afraid of being left out.

    Not who you become when loneliness starts negotiating against your dignity.

    Who you are.

    What you love.

    What you believe.

    What brings you peace?

    What kind of man do you want to become when no one is clapping?

    What kind of life feels honest when nobody is watching?

    I would tell him that solitude is not always punishment. Sometimes it is protection. Sometimes being alone is the first place where you can finally hear yourself without all the borrowed voices talking over you.

    There is grief in realizing how much time you gave away.

    Time you could have used to grow.

    To read.

    To think.

    To build.

    To heal.

    To understand your own mind.

    To become comfortable in your own skin.

    To stop asking strangers, friends, lovers, and crowds for permission to exist.

    But I would not speak to him cruelly.

    He was doing the best he could with what he knew.

    He wanted a connection.

    He wanted to matter.

    He wanted to be loved in a world that often teaches people to earn what should have been given freely.

    So I would not shame him for trying.

    I recommend telling him to try differently.

    Try choosing yourself.

    Try telling the truth sooner.

    Try leaving when the room keeps requiring your disappearance.

    Try noticing who only loves you when you are convenient.

    Try paying attention to the people who make you feel peaceful rather than desperate.

    Try building a life that does not depend on approval from people who have not even learned to approve of themselves.

    Because one day, you will understand something that a twenty-year-old could not yet know.

    The goal was never to become the kind of person everyone liked.

    The goal was to become someone you could live with.

    Someone you could respect.

    Someone whose reflection did not look like a stranger assembled from other people’s expectations.

    I would tell him that self-discovery is not selfish.

    It is necessary.

    You cannot build a true life out of borrowed pieces. You cannot keep abandoning yourself and call it love. You cannot keep giving your time to people who leave you with less of yourself and expect peace to grow there.

    So I would tell my 20-year-old self:

    Come back to you.

    Earlier.

    Stay with you.

    Longer.

    Learn yourself before trying to be chosen.

    Because the people meant for your life should not require you to disappear before they can accept you.

    And the time you spend becoming yourself is never wasted.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

    Please like, comment, and share

    Resources for Hard Times

    If you’re looking for practical help, food support, or community resources, you can visit the Salt, Ink & Soul Resources Page.

    👉 Resources for Hard Times