Tag: personal growth

  • Another Brick in the Wall

    Another Brick in the Wall

    I was out getting my steps in this morning when a song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall came through my headphones.

    I cannot even remember what playlist I had been listening to.

    I remember stopping it.

    Some albums you listen to; others wait for you.

    I had heard The Wall many times before. I had watched the movie many times before. When I was a teenager, people used to joke that you had to be under the influence of one substance or another to truly understand it.

    Maybe we had that backward.

    Maybe you just had to live long enough.

    So I stopped the playlist and started the album from the beginning.

    And somewhere along my walk, I understood the wall differently.

    Not as this strange, theatrical thing belonging to somebody else’s tortured imagination.

    I understood the bricks.

    Your mother hurts you.

    A brick.

    Someone you love betrays you.

    Another brick.

    Someone humiliates you.

    Another.

    You trust somebody who teaches you that perhaps you shouldn’t.

    Another.

    You are frightened, disappointed, rejected, abandoned, embarrassed. You learn that showing pain sometimes invites more pain, so you decide you won’t show it anymore.

    Brick.

    Mortar.

    Brick.

    Mortar.

    Eventually, what started as protection begins to look like architecture.

    And there you are, standing behind something you built yourself.

    Safe.

    Maybe.

    But alone.

    That was the part I understood this morning in a way I don’t think I could have understood as a teenager.

    Because I have built walls of my own.

    For years, when something bothered me, I often wouldn’t say anything. If I was hurt, I kept it to myself. If I was angry, I swallowed it. If somebody crossed a line, I sometimes moved it and convinced myself that keeping quiet meant I was handling it.

    I thought silence was control.

    It wasn’t.

    It was storage.

    And storage eventually reaches capacity.

    Sometimes everything I had refused to say came out at once. Anger became rage. Something that might have deserved a sentence received an explosion instead.

    Then came the embarrassment.

    The regret.

    The knowledge that whatever legitimate reason I had for being angry was now buried beneath the way I had expressed it.

    So what did I do?

    I added another brick.

    I became quieter.

    More guarded.

    More determined not to let it happen again.

    Which meant I returned to the very thing that helped create the problem in the first place.

    Silence.

    That is the cruelty of some walls. They convince us that the cure for what is hurting us is simply more wall.

    I eventually began talking to someone.

    Even now, it feels strange to admit that I needed another person to teach me something that sounds almost ridiculously simple:

    You are allowed to say you are angry.

    Not scream it.

    Not throw it.

    Not make another person afraid of it.

    Just say it.

    “I am very angry about what happened.”

    “That bothered me.”

    “What you said hurt me.”

    “I don’t like the way you treated me.”

    Simple sentences.

    I spent years carrying entire storms because I never learned to announce that it was raining.

    There is a difference between feeling anger and surrendering yourself to it. There is a difference between expressing pain and weaponizing it. Learning the first may help prevent the second.

    That is part of what I heard differently in The Wall this morning.

    I heard a person building protection around wound after wound until there was almost nowhere left for the wounded person to go. And when everything finally burst through, I heard something familiar—not an excuse for cruelty or destruction, but the terrible sound of emotions with nowhere healthy to live.

    Maybe that is one of the dangers of emotional walls.

    We imagine that the wall keeps everything outside.

    But it keeps things inside, too.

    The anger stays.

    The grief stays.

    The humiliation stays.

    The conversations we never had stay.

    The sentences we swallowed stay.

    And eventually we may discover that we haven’t built a fortress at all.

    We’ve built a pressure cooker.

    I am still learning this.

    I still get angry.

    I still get hurt.

    I still have moments when the old instinct tells me to say nothing, swallow it, keep moving, not make trouble, and not let anybody see that they got to you.

    I am not perfect.

    But I haven’t had one of those episodes in a long time.

    That matters to me.

    Not because I believe I have arrived somewhere, but because I know how far I have walked.

    And maybe healing sometimes looks less dramatic than we imagine.

    Maybe sometimes healing is simply catching yourself before you reach for another brick.

    Maybe it is saying, “That hurt me,” while the hurt is still small enough to name.

    Maybe it’s letting someone trustworthy stand beside you while you figure out why you started building the wall in the first place.

    And maybe strength isn’t proving that nobody can get through.

    Maybe strength is realizing that you need a door.

    This morning, I started my walk trying to get my steps in.

    Somewhere along the way, I found myself thinking about all the bricks I have carried.

    Some were handed to me.

    Some I picked up myself.

    Some probably saved me when I didn’t yet know another way to protect myself.

    I don’t hate the person who built them.

    He was doing what he knew how to do.

    But I know something now that he didn’t.

    I don’t have to keep building.

    One day at a time, I can learn to put the bricks down.

    And perhaps that is what growing older sometimes gives us.

    Not the chance to go back and live without wounds.

    The chance to finally understand what we built around them.

    And the courage to leave an opening.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • The Price of the Right Path

    The Price of the Right Path

    I usually don’t let things bother me. I’ve learned to keep my head down, do the work, walk my path—even when that path is quiet, lonely, unglamorous.

    But this week has been different. I’ve been sick at home, just me, the couch, and the endless hum of YouTube filling the silence between doses of medicine. Then I clicked on a video from one of my favorite channels, Knight Talk. The title said it all: I’m Sick of This Sh*t.

    Within moments, I understood why. An OnlyFans creator was on-screen, laughing and smiling, casually showing the receipts of her success: $82 million.

    Eighty-two million.

    I stopped the video. Couldn’t finish it.

    It hit me harder than I wanted it to. Not because I begrudge anyone making a living—we don’t know her life, her circumstances, her hunger. But because it felt like something else was happening in that moment.

    Something spiritual.

    I work hard. I try every day to keep my hands clean, my conscience clear, my choices deliberate. I try to stay on the right path—even when the wrong one looks easier, shinier, faster. And then I see something like this, and it’s as if evil itself leans in close to whisper:

    All this can be yours.

    And I wonder if the wrong path is the only one still paying.

    This is not a new question. It is as old as Job’s lament, as old as the desert where Christ was offered the kingdoms of the earth. It is the voice that says, Why wait for goodness when you can have glory now?

    And it’s not really about OnlyFans.

    It’s not even about money.

    It’s about the way we are asked, over and over again, to watch the rewards of shortcuts pile up while we keep grinding away for pennies and peace of mind.

    Some days it feels like we are all contestants in a rigged game: who can stay righteous the longest while the world parades its golden idols in front of us?

    I know this is part of the fight—the invisible war that doesn’t make the highlight reel. If doing the right thing were easy, everyone would do it.

    But it is not easy.

    It is not fast.

    It is not glamorous.

    It is what Eugene Peterson called “a long obedience in the same direction”—the slow work of continuing to choose what you believe is right.

    It is the quiet refusal to cash out your dignity for a quick hit of security or fame. It is choosing to build something that will last beyond your own life, even if it means watching someone else build a mansion in the time it takes you to lay a single brick.

    And maybe that’s what bothers me most: not the money, not the platform, but the gnawing truth that integrity is slow work.

    Slow enough to feel like punishment some days.

    I don’t have a neat ending for this. No sermon about how it all evens out in the end.

    Maybe it doesn’t.

    Perhaps the wrong path is truly profitable—for a time.

    But I know this: staying on the right path is shaping me in ways a shortcut never could. It is building something in me that eighty-two million dollars cannot buy.

    And maybe, when the whisper comes again—All this can be yours—I will have the strength to whisper back:

    No thanks. I’m good.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • The Difficult Work of Doing Right

    The Difficult Work of Doing Right

    Lately, I’ve been trying to be more careful about what I allow into my life.

    Not only what I eat, but what I watch. What I listen to. What I repeat. What I let sit in my mind long enough to start rearranging the furniture.

    I didn’t begin with any grand declaration. There was no mountaintop, no bolt of lightning, no solemn promise made before witnesses. I decided that I wanted to work on myself.

    So I started with the basics.

    Eat better.

    Move my body.

    Pay attention to how I speak to people, especially when I am tired, irritated, or certain I am right.

    These things aren’t easy. A plate of food can make a persuasive argument. The couch has defeated stronger men than me. And kindness is simple only until someone gives you a reason to withhold it.

    Still, I expected those struggles.

    What I didn’t expect was that the hardest part of trying to become a better man would be the oldest instruction of all:

    Do the right thing.

    The Speeches We Remember

    When I was a boy, doing the right thing seemed clearer.

    I read Captain America comics. I remember the speeches more than the punches—the insistence that a person should stand where conscience told him to stand, even when the crowd moved in the opposite direction.

    On those pages, right and wrong arrived in different uniforms. The villain usually announced himself. Courage had broad shoulders and a shield.

    Real life is less considerate.

    Wrong does not always enter the room wearing a mask. Sometimes it arrives as convenience. Sometimes it sounds like common sense. Sometimes it comes from people we love, people we respect, or people whose approval helps pay the bills.

    Sometimes wrong is simply what everybody else has already agreed to do.

    That is what makes it dangerous.

    Years ago, someone told me, “If doing the right thing were easy, everyone would be doing it.”

    I understood the sentence then. Or I thought I did. It sounded like one of those sayings meant to make a young person stand straighter. I could not have known how much truth it held.

    Doing right is difficult because it often asks for payment before it offers proof.

    It may cost you comfort. It may cost you an opportunity. It may cost you the warmth of a room that welcomed you only as long as you agreed not to disturb it.

    And sometimes, even after you have paid, no one applauds.

    The Ease of Going Along

    There is a powerful current in the phrase go along to get along.

    It sounds harmless. Almost neighborly.

    Don’t make trouble.

    Don’t hold up the line.

    Don’t ask the question that makes everyone look down at the table.

    Take the shortcut. Sign the paper. Laugh at the joke. Accept the explanation you know isn’t true. Let the small cruelty pass because naming it would make the evening uncomfortable.

    We are rarely told, in plain language, to betray what we believe. The request is usually softer than that.

    Be practical.

    Don’t take it so seriously.

    That’s just how things are.

    Everybody does it.

    There’s the trap.

    When enough people choose what’s easy, ease begins to look like wisdom. When enough people repeat a lie, the truth-teller begins to look disruptive.

    The crowd does not have to be cruel.

    It only has to keep moving.

    And moving with it is easy.

    You don’t have to decide where you are going. You don’t have to explain yourself. You borrow the judgment of the people around you and call it peace.

    But peace built on abandoning conscience is not peace.

    It is quiet.

    There is a difference.

    The Question Beneath the Noise

    I’m learning to pause before I make certain choices and ask one small question:

    Is it right?

    Not: Can I get away with it?

    Not: Will anyone know?

    Not: Is this what everyone else is doing?

    Not even: Will this work out well for me?

    Only: Is it right?

    Common sense should help us answer. So should compassion.

    If a decision requires me to pretend another person’s pain doesn’t matter, there is probably something wrong with the decision. If my comfort depends upon someone else carrying the burden, I should at least be honest about the arrangement.

    But honesty creates responsibility.

    Once we admit that we see what is happening, it becomes harder to claim we did not know what to do.

    Perhaps that is why we sometimes avoid the question.

    The question follows us home.

    It sits across from us while we eat. It waits in the dark after the television has gone quiet. It knows the version of the story we told everyone else, and it knows what we left out.

    The body often recognizes a moral compromise before the mind finishes defending it.

    A tightness in the chest.

    A hesitation before speaking.

    The sudden need to explain a choice no one has questioned.

    Something within us is still keeping the books.

    What Right Costs

    We like to imagine that doing the right thing will feel good.

    Sometimes it does.

    Sometimes it feels terrible.

    It can feel like disappointing someone. It can feel like walking away from money you need. It can feel like apologizing when pride has already prepared a closing argument. It can feel like refusing to punish someone simply because you have the power to.

    Doing right does not always make us look strong.

    At times, it asks us to be gentle when anger would be more impressive. It asks us to listen when we have already loaded our mouths with a response. It asks us to tell the truth without using truth as a weapon.

    That last part matters.

    Righteousness can become vanity if we are not careful. A person can be correct and still be cruel. We can become so pleased with our own moral clarity that we stop seeing the human being in front of us.

    The point is not to win the role of the good person.

    The point is to do as little harm as we can—and repair what we have damaged when we fail.

    And we will fail.

    I do not write this from some high place. I have taken easier roads. I have remained silent when I should have spoken and spoken sharply when silence would have been kinder. I have confused being justified with being right.

    Working on myself has not made me pure.

    It has made me less able to hide from myself.

    That may be the beginning.

    The Decisions That Do Not Leave Us

    I have not mentioned another difficulty.

    Sometimes we do not know what the right thing is until long after the moment has passed.

    Sometimes we never know.

    Years ago, a friend of mine was in the hospital after a drug-related incident. While I was visiting her, she asked if she could have a new bank card mailed to my address.

    The request struck me as strange.

    She had her own apartment. She had a boyfriend. She had family. I didn’t understand why the card needed to come to me, and whatever instinct I had at the time told me not to get involved.

    So I said no.

    At the time, it felt like a reasonable boundary. We are told to pay attention when something does not make sense. We are told that caring for someone does not mean agreeing to every request.

    I had incomplete information and made the decision I thought was safest.

    Then she died.

    Later, I learned that the money in her bank account had been drained. There was not enough left to bury her. Money had to be raised for her funeral.

    I have carried that knowledge ever since.

    I have wondered whether she was trying to protect what little she had. I have wondered whether she knew something she could not say plainly from that hospital bed. I have wondered whether sending that card to my home might have changed what happened afterward.

    I will never know.

    Grief is merciless with unanswered questions. It takes what we knew then and puts it on trial using what we learned later. It returns us to the room with evidence we did not have when we were standing inside it.

    To this day, I question whether I made the right decision.

    I can tell myself that the request seemed unusual. I can tell myself that I was entitled to say no.

    Both things are true.

    But truth does not always quiet regret.

    Perhaps doing the right thing is not always about recognizing a clear moral path and having the courage to take it. Sometimes it is about admitting that we cannot see the whole road.

    Sometimes all we can do is listen more carefully, ask one more question, and remember that an unusual request may be carrying a fear the other person does not yet know how to name.

    I cannot return to that hospital room. I cannot ask my friend what she was afraid of or tell her that I understand more now than I did then.

    I can only allow the memory to change the way I meet the next person.

    Maybe that is one of the harder forms of conscience: not punishing ourselves forever for what we did not know, but refusing to waste what regret has taught us.

    The Fear of Standing Alone

    I think many people know what the right thing is.

    What they fear is the loneliness of doing it.

    We picture ourselves standing alone while everyone else watches. We imagine invitations that may stop coming, conversations that will change when we enter the room, and the names people will give us once we are no longer useful to their comfort.

    That fear is real. Good choices do not come with a guarantee of companionship.

    But I do not believe we remain alone forever.

    I believe conviction has a way of recognizing itself in others. One person stands, and someone across the room realizes they can stand too. One person asks the forbidden question, and another discovers they were not the only one carrying it.

    Help does not always arrive like a rescue.

    Sometimes it arrives as a quiet voice saying, “I saw what you did.” Sometimes it is a hand on the shoulder. Sometimes it is the private relief of knowing that, whatever the consequences, you did not abandon yourself.

    More people may be waiting for courage than we know.

    Perhaps they are waiting for us.

    The Person We Practice Becoming

    I used to think character revealed itself in the great moment—the crisis, the speech, the single brave act that settled everything.

    Now I think character is assembled in smaller rooms.

    It is built when no one is watching. In the pause before we answer. In the story we refuse to spread. In the apology we offer without attaching an excuse. In the choice to leave something for the next person instead of taking all we can carry.

    We become honest by practicing honesty. We become kind by choosing kindness when kindness is inconvenient. We become brave in increments so small that, at first, they do not feel like bravery at all.

    Maybe that is why doing the right thing is so difficult.

    It is not one decision.

    It is a life made of them.

    There will always be pressure to hurry, to follow, to accept the easy answer because it is already waiting for us. A crowd will always be willing to lend us its certainty.

    But the quieter question remains.

    Is it right?

    I cannot promise that asking will make the road easier. It may make it harder. I cannot promise that choosing well will leave us untouched.

    Sometimes the cost will be real.

    Still, I believe help comes. I believe people of conscience find one another. I believe a decent life is not built by never being afraid, but by refusing to let fear make every decision.

    The heroes I read about as a boy stood beneath bright colors and spoke in sentences made to be remembered.

    Most of us will not get the shield. We will not get the speech. We will get an ordinary day, an uncomfortable choice, and a moment in which no one can decide for us.

    Then we will have to ask the question.

    And live with the answer.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • I Came for the Fair Food. I’m Glad I Went Anyway.

    I Came for the Fair Food. I’m Glad I Went Anyway.

    Today I went to the New Mexico State Fair.

    I have written before about how much effort it can take to just go outside. Crowds add another layer. They gather somewhere, and I consider going somewhere else.

    Lately, I have been trying to renegotiate that arrangement.

    There are things I want to see, places I want to go, and afternoons I would like to have without first calculating how many other people might be having them. I am not expecting to become someone who enjoys standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers. I would just like a little more say in where I spend my day.

    So I went early.

    Almost at opening, with rain coming down and most children still in school. I had purchased a five-dollar flash-sale ticket that morning. One day only. Use it today.

    Apparently, even my reluctance has a price.

    Five dollars got the conversation started.

    The accessible parking was free and fairly close to the entrance, which I appreciated. When walking requires some thought, the distance between your car and where you are going becomes part of the outing before it begins. Having that part be manageable made it easier to enjoy what came next.

    I entered without the usual wall of people.

    There was room to walk. Room to stop and look without feeling that I was obstructing someone else’s afternoon. The rain had made the day less attractive to some people and a little more possible for me.

    I was grateful for that.

    The rides looked good. The people on them appeared to be having a wonderful time, which is exactly where I prefer my amusement-park excitement: happening to other people.

    I watched from the ground.

    There were T-shirt vendors everywhere. Plenty to look at. Bright signs announcing things that could be fried, things that could be put on a stick, and things someone had apparently decided needed both.

    But I had come for one thing.

    Fair Food.

    Colorful food booths lining a walkway at the New Mexico State Fair.

    There is a particular optimism involved in arriving at a fair hungry. You imagine that somewhere between the entrance and the Ferris wheel, someone is preparing something that will justify the price, the walk, and whatever conversation you later have with yourself about your choices.

    I looked at the photographs on the booths. I looked at the food people were carrying. I walked and waited for something to call my name.

    Nothing did.

    That surprised me.

    At my age, I have been to quite a few fairs. I have eaten quite a bit of fair Food. Perhaps some of what I once experienced as excitement was simply the pleasure of encountering something for the first time.

    You cannot ask every afternoon to give you that again.

    Still, I was willing to let lunch try.

    I found a stand selling Alligator on a stick and deep-fried boudin balls. That seemed promising. Two foods I associate with Louisiana, a place whose cooking has never suggested to me that seasoning should be approached with fear.

    I ordered both, found somewhere to sit, and ate.

    Deep-fried boudin balls topped with ranch in a paper tray.
    Alligator on a stick topped with Ranch and served in foil.

    Or, more accurately, I began looking for the flavor.

    Both tasted unseasoned to me. There was the Food itself, the fried coating, the expectation of something that should have arrived with it.

    I kept waiting.

    Louisiana would be disappointed.

    I wondered whether anyone cooking those dishes had ever lived there. That was my disappointed appetite talking; I had no way of knowing. All I could say was that the Louisiana I expected to taste hadn’t made it into my order.

    Food carries a place into rooms that place will never see. Someone takes a bite and forms an impression. Of a kitchen. Of a region. Sometimes of people they have never met.

    That is a considerable responsibility for a paper tray.

    I don’t expect a fair booth to reproduce somebody’s grandmother’s kitchen. I know there is work behind that counter, and I know a disappointing meal does not tell me everything about the person who prepared it.

    But I had hoped for more than the shape of the thing.

    I wanted the seasoning.

    I ate both dishes anyway.

    Then I stood up and wondered how two small portions had made me feel as though I had gained twenty pounds.

    There should have been more pleasure involved in feeling that full.

    I kept walking.

    After a while, that familiar feeling began settling over the afternoon.

    Been here. Seen this. Done that.

    It is an easy conclusion to reach as you get older. Sometimes it is accurate. Sometimes you really have seen enough T-shirts and fried Food for one day.

    But I wonder how often familiarity makes us stop looking before we are finished seeing.

    I had arrived with an idea of what would make the trip worthwhile. The Food was supposed to be the reward for getting myself out of the house and through the entrance. When it disappointed me, I was beginning to let it speak for the whole Fair.

    Then I saw the African American Pavilion Art Gallery.

    I had never been inside.

    In the middle of all that feeling that I had already done everything, there was a place I had yet to explore.

    I did not go inside today. I plan to visit soon and give it time, attention, and an essay of its own here on Salt, Ink & Soul.

    Exterior sign for the Alice K. Hoppes African-American Pavilion Art Gallery.

    But noticing it interrupted my mood. I had been walking around thinking about how familiar everything felt, and here was something I still knew so little about.

    I could leave the rides to the people enjoying them. I could decide the boudin balls had let me down. Still, there was a reason to come back.

    And nearby, something else caught my attention.

    A prominent marijuana dispensary had set up a tent.

    At the New Mexico State Fair.

    I smiled.

    I do not partake. I had no plans to start. But there was something quietly amusing about seeing that business with a booth among the other businesses, participating in the ordinary machinery of a fair.

    I have lived long enough for that sight to surprise me.

    No purchase was necessary. I could simply stand there and notice how much the scenery had changed.

    A few minutes earlier, I had been thinking I had seen it all.

    Apparently, I had not.

    Ferris wheel rising above trees near the New Mexico State Fair entrance.

    I would have preferred better Food. Let the record show that I have not become so philosophical that seasoning no longer matters.

    But I was glad I went.

    I had found a way to be somewhere that could make me uncomfortable. I had given myself an early start, a quieter entrance, and permission to enjoy the day at my own pace.

    For once, the crowd had not made the decision.

    I had.

    And somewhere between a disappointing lunch and making a plan to return, I stopped deciding what the afternoon should be.

    I looked around.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • I Chose the Better Room

    I Chose the Better Room

    I chose the better room on purpose.

    That probably doesn’t sound like much of a decision.

    People choose hotel rooms every day. They look at the pictures, compare the prices, decide whether they want the larger bed or the better view, and click the button.

    But I sat there for a while before I clicked mine.

    Because somewhere inside me, an old voice was doing the math.

    Not the math of whether I could afford it.

    I could.

    A different kind of math.

    Do you really need that?

    I know that question well.

    I grew up with it.

    When you grow up without much, necessity becomes its own kind of morality. You learn there are things you need and things you want, and good people are supposed to know the difference.

    You don’t pay extra for the view.

    You don’t need the bigger room.

    A bed is a bed.

    A room is somewhere to sleep.

    Why spend money on something you can do without?

    There was wisdom in that.

    I don’t want to pretend otherwise.

    Those lessons came from people who understood what it meant to stretch a dollar until there wasn’t much stretch left. People who knew that money spent carelessly today might be money desperately needed tomorrow.

    They taught us how to survive scarcity.

    The problem is that nobody tells you what to do with those lessons when scarcity is no longer your everyday condition.

    Sometimes the circumstances change before the thinking does.

    So this time, I chose the better room.

    Not because I needed it.

    I chose it because I wanted to be comfortable.

    Even writing that feels a little strange.

    My brother arrived a day earlier than expected.

    He wanted me to meet his wife, and while he was still on the road, he called me. Somewhere in the conversation, we started talking about the hotel.

    My brother has done well for himself.

    Very well.

    At some point, he mentioned that he doesn’t usually stay in places like this.

    I didn’t think much about it at first.

    Then I did.

    Because I know where he came from.

    He came from where I came from.

    And I found myself wondering whether an old voice was still doing the math inside him, too.

    I can’t say if there is.

    His reasons belong to him.

    But I wondered.

    Two brothers, years removed from the circumstances of their childhood, both successful enough to make choices our younger selves couldn’t have made, perhaps still hearing echoes from a time when spending money on comfort would have seemed foolish.

    Maybe even irresponsible.

    It made me wonder how much of our past continues making decisions for us long after we believe we have left it behind.

    Scarcity teaches you things.

    Some of them are useful.

    You learn how to make do.

    You learn how to repair instead of replace.

    You learn that expensive and good are not synonyms.

    You learn not to confuse wanting something with needing it.

    Those are lessons I hope I never lose.

    But scarcity can teach other lessons too.

    It can teach you to feel guilty when you have more than enough.

    It can make comfort feel suspicious.

    It can convince you that choosing the cheaper thing is always evidence of wisdom, even when the difference no longer matters much to your life.

    And perhaps most quietly, it can teach you to ask whether you need something when that is no longer the only question available to you.

    I am not talking about living beyond your means.

    I am not talking about buying things to impress people who aren’t paying your bills.

    I am not talking about mistaking luxury for happiness.

    I have lived long enough to know better than that.

    I am talking about living comfortably within your means.

    There is a difference.

    And I am beginning to think that difference matters.

    Maybe there comes a point when the question changes.

    For much of my life, the question was:

    Do I really need this?

    That question served me well.

    But there are times now when I can ask something else.

    Can I afford it?

    Will it make this experience better?

    Am I making the choice responsibly?

    And if the answers are yes, maybe I don’t need to summon hardship as proof that I still remember where I came from.

    Maybe remembering is enough.

    That is the part I am still learning.

    Because there is something complicated about doing better than you once did.

    People talk about success as though it simply opens doors.

    They don’t talk as much about how long you can stand in the doorway wondering whether you are supposed to walk through.

    Some of us become very good at surviving.

    So good that survival follows us into rooms where it is no longer required.

    We carry it in the way we shop.

    The way we save.

    The things we refuse ourselves.

    The small calculations nobody else sees.

    And perhaps that isn’t entirely bad.

    I don’t want to lose the boy who understood that money mattered.

    I don’t want to become careless simply because I no longer have to count every dollar the way people around me once did.

    There is honor in remembering.

    But there should also be some room for living.

    So I am sitting in the better room.

    There is more space than I need.

    There are things here I could certainly do without.

    And tomorrow morning, when I wake up, none of it will have transformed my life.

    It is just a hotel room.

    I know that.

    But perhaps choosing it was never really about the room.

    Maybe it was about giving myself permission to enjoy something I could responsibly afford without immediately explaining why I didn’t need it.

    Maybe it was about understanding that the people who taught me how to survive would not necessarily want survival to be the ceiling of my life.

    I don’t know.

    I’m still thinking about that.

    But I know this:

    There is nothing wrong with remembering how to live with less.

    I just don’t want to become so faithful to scarcity that I forget I no longer have to.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • The Foot and the Flower

    The Foot and the Flower

    This is a longer reflection than I usually share. I allowed it the space it needed because some wounds cannot be understood in a few sentences.

    For weeks now, I have been thinking about a flower.

    Not a particular kind. No rose or sunflower. 

    Just an ordinary flower trying to grow.

    Every morning, someone steps on it.

    Not hard enough to kill it. Just enough pressure to bend the stem. To bruise what has begun to open. To make the flower spend its strength recovering instead of growing.

    Then, after enough days have passed, the same person looks down and asks why it did not bloom properly.

    Why are you so small?

    Why do you lean that way?

    Why are your petals damaged?

    Why can’t you grow like the others?

    I have not been able to let that image go.

    Perhaps because I know what it feels like to be the flower.

    As a Black man, I have watched criticism presented as a form of love for most of my life. I have seen people embarrassed in front of others and told it was for their own good. I have heard jokes sharpened into weapons, then dismissed with the familiar accusation that the person wounded was too sensitive.

    We call it keeping someone humble.

    Keeping their head from getting too big.

    Making sure they don’t start thinking they are better than everyone else.

    Preparing them for the world.

    There is always a reason given for the foot.

    We are told that the world will not be gentle with us, so there is no point in being gentle with one another. We tell ourselves that ridicule builds a thick skin. That public embarrassment creates discipline. That if we cut someone down before the world gets the chance, perhaps they will be less surprised when it happens outside the safety of home.

    But I have begun to wonder what kind of safety requires us to imitate the danger.

    What kind of love practices the cruelty it claims to be preparing us to survive?

    The world has rarely needed our help hurting Black people.

    It has been remarkably capable on its own.

    I understand the value of correction. None of us should move through life surrounded by people too afraid to tell us when we are wrong. We need honesty. We need accountability. We need someone willing to say that we have fallen short, that our choices caused harm, or that the work we offered was not yet our best.

    But honesty does not require humiliation.

    Correction does not need an audience.

    Love does not have to leave a person smaller than it found them.

    Somewhere along the way, we began confusing humility with humiliation.

    Humility teaches us that we are not above anyone.

    Humiliation teaches us that we are beneath everyone.

    One keeps the ego from becoming a throne.

    The other convinces the spirit it does not deserve a chair.

    They are not the same.

    I have heard stories that some of this behavior may have roots in slavery. Stories of Black people hiding the intelligence, strength, skill, or beauty of someone they loved because being noticed by those who controlled their lives could be dangerous. An exceptional ability might attract attention. Attention could lead to exploitation, separation, or sale.

    I cannot say exactly how often it happened in that way.

    But I understand the fear beneath the story.

    There were times when being seen was dangerous for us.

    There were times when a person’s ability did not belong to them but became another thing someone else could profit from.

    Perhaps, under those conditions, love sometimes learned to hide itself.

    Perhaps protection sometimes sounded like criticism.

    Perhaps people made their children appear smaller because the world had made Black excellence unsafe.

    Survival can require strange disguises.

    But survival habits do not always disappear when the original danger changes.

    Sometimes they remain long after the people who first needed them are gone.

    A shield carried for generations can become too heavy to lift.

    A behavior created to protect the flower can eventually become the foot that keeps stepping on it.

    That is the question troubling me now.

    What are we protecting one another from today when we mock someone for being intelligent?

    What good are we creating when we ridicule a person for speaking differently, dressing differently, dreaming differently, or wanting more than the people around them were taught to expect?

    We excuse much of this by saying it is part of the culture.

    But culture is not an excuse.

    Culture is an inheritance.

    And like every inheritance, it must be examined.

    Much of what we carry is beautiful.

    But we have also carried wounds.

    Some have been passed down so carefully that we began mistaking them for traditions.

    Loving our culture does not require defending everything within it.

    Sometimes love means looking at what we inherited and asking whether it still serves us.

    Sometimes love means admitting that something once born from survival has become another source of pain.

    Not everything that survived deserves to lead us.

    I think of how often Black children are taught not to think too highly of themselves.

    There is wisdom in teaching a child that they are no better than anyone else.

    But there is danger in teaching them they are nothing special.

    The world will offer that lesson often enough.

    A child should not have to receive it first from home.

    How many young people have hidden their intelligence because achievement separated them from the group?

    How many have learned to pronounce words incorrectly so no one would accuse them of trying to sound white?

    How many sensitive boys learned to harden themselves because tenderness attracted ridicule?

    How many girls learned to dim their confidence so others would not call it arrogance?

    We tell ourselves we are keeping people grounded.

    Sometimes we are burying them.

    A particular expectation is placed on Black men.

    We are supposed to take it.

    The joke.

    The insult.

    The criticism.

    The public embarrassment.

    We are expected to remain still while someone cuts into us and then laugh to prove the blade was not sharp.

    If we admit that something hurt, we are called weak.

    If we object, we are told we cannot take a joke.

    So we learn to laugh.

    Sometimes we laugh before everyone else does.

    We make ourselves the joke so no one can accuse us of being unable to take one.

    We wound ourselves publicly and call it confidence.

    But laughter is not always evidence that something was harmless.

    Sometimes laughter is the sound a person makes while trying not to bleed in front of everyone.

    I have wondered how much of myself this shaped.

    How many times did I make myself smaller before entering a room?

    How often did I question my own thoughts because someone had taught me that confidence invited punishment?

    How often did I speak less clearly than I could have, not because I lacked the words, but because I did not want anyone to think I believed I belonged among those who used them?

    After being stepped on long enough, the foot no longer has to be present.

    You begin doing the work yourself.

    You criticize the idea before sharing it.

    You diminish the accomplishment before anyone can accuse you of pride.

    You reject the opportunity before someone else can tell you that you are not ready.

    You hide enthusiasm because joy makes you visible.

    You keep your expectations low and call it realism.

    That may be the cruelest part.

    The person who once harmed you can leave, but the voice remains.

    Then one day, you look at the life you have built and wonder why so much of it was shaped by fear of becoming visible.

    I do not believe the answer is empty praise.

    Flowers do not grow because we stand over them and tell them they are perfect.

    They need light, water, room, and care.

    Sometimes they need pruning.

    Care is not the absence of correction.

    Care is correction offered in service of growth.

    There is a difference between telling someone the truth and making them ashamed of being alive.

    There is a difference between preparing someone for difficulty and becoming one more source of it.

    There is a difference between helping someone grow and demanding that they prove they can survive being crushed.

    I wonder what would happen if we learned that difference.

    What might our communities look like if encouragement did not make us suspicious?

    What if we could watch someone rise without needing to remind them of every place they once fell?

    What if we understood that celebrating another person’s light does not dim our own?

    Perhaps more of us would reach adulthood without needing to rebuild the parts of ourselves that were dismantled at home.

    Perhaps excellence would feel less lonely.

    Perhaps a gifted child would not have to choose between belonging and becoming.

    Perhaps the young person who seems strange would be allowed enough time to discover that strangeness is a gift before the world has found a name for it.

    We often praise the person who grows through hardship.

    We admire the flower breaking through concrete.

    We photograph it.

    We turn it into a symbol of resilience.

    But we rarely ask why the flower had to fight concrete in the first place.

    Strength born from suffering is still strength.

    But suffering should not receive credit for everything a person became despite it.

    Pain may teach us.

    That does not mean pain was the only possible teacher.

    The flower that survived beneath the foot might have grown taller without it.

    It might have bloomed earlier.

    It might have spent less of its life healing from injuries others insisted were lessons.

    We may never know.

    That uncertainty carries its own sorrow.

    I cannot change every moment when I was cut down.

    I cannot recover every piece of myself I learned to hide.

    But I can decide what kind of person I will be when I stand near someone else who is beginning to grow.

    I do not want to be the foot.

    I do not want to wound them and then congratulate myself for making them stronger.

    I want to learn how to tell the truth with care.

    I want to recognize potential before it becomes achievement.

    I want to encourage people while they are still uncertain, not only after the world has permitted me to believe in them.

    I want to say:

    I see something in you.

    Keep going.

    You do not have to shrink to make me comfortable.

    Your gift does not threaten mine.

    That is how a culture changes.

    Not all at once.

    Not through speeches or declarations.

    Perhaps it begins with small acts of refusal.

    Refusing to laugh when the joke is meant to reduce someone.

    Refusing to mistake cruelty for honesty.

    Refusing to pass down a wound merely because it was handed to us.

    Perhaps it begins when we stop asking how much pressure a person can endure and start asking what they might become with the right care.

    A flower does not need to be stepped on to learn how to grow.

    It already knows to reach for the light.

    Our responsibility is not to test how much damage it can survive.

    It is to stop blocking the sun.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • How Do You Deal With Uncertainty?

    How Do You Deal With Uncertainty?

    I try to make sure I am doing the right thing.

    That may sound too simple for a question about uncertainty. We tend to think uncertainty requires some complicated philosophy. A system. A way of seeing around corners and knowing what waits for us before we get there.

    I don’t have one.

    Most of the time, I cannot know what is going to happen. I cannot know how someone will respond to a decision I make. I cannot know whether a choice will work out the way I hope. Age has not given me the ability to predict the future.

    But it has made me more interested in something else.

    Being able to live with myself afterward.

    So when I am uncertain, I try to ask a simpler question:

    Am I doing the right thing?

    Not the easiest thing.

    Not the thing that benefits me the most.

    Not even the thing I particularly want to do.

    The right thing.

    I think most of us know the difference more often than we pretend we do.

    That is where uncertainty can become complicated.

    Sometimes what we call uncertainty isn’t really uncertainty at all. Sometimes we know exactly what the right thing is.

    We just don’t want to do it.

    If doing the right thing was easy, everyone would do it.

    Because doing the right thing can cost you something.

    It can mean admitting you were wrong when your pride would rather defend you.

    It can mean telling the truth when a lie would make life easier.

    It can mean keeping your word when breaking it would be more convenient.

    It can mean walking away from something you desperately want because you know having it would require becoming someone you don’t want to be.

    There are moments when the wrong thing comes dressed in very reasonable clothing.

    It whispers that nobody will know.

    That everyone does it.

    That you deserve this one exception.

    That you’ve already sacrificed enough.

    And perhaps that is where character lives—not in the moments when right and wrong are obvious and doing right costs us nothing, but in those quiet places where we could choose differently and probably get away with it.

    I have learned that doing the right thing does not guarantee a good outcome.

    That is important.

    You can be honest and still lose.

    You can be kind and still be misunderstood.

    You can make the responsible decision and still wonder afterward whether you made a mistake.

    Doing right is not some bargain we make with the universe where good behavior guarantees good results.

    Life doesn’t work that way.

    Sometimes you do the right thing, and it hurts.

    Sometimes nobody thanks you.

    Sometimes nobody even knows.

    But there is a particular kind of peace in knowing that when the moment came, you did what you believed was right.

    Maybe that is how I deal with uncertainty.

    I don’t try to eliminate it.

    I couldn’t if I wanted to.

    I simply try to make certain of the part that belongs to me.

    My choices.

    My intentions.

    My willingness to do what I know is right, even when I would rather do something else.

    The rest belongs to tomorrow.

    And tomorrow has never asked my permission before arriving.

    So I try to meet it with a clear conscience.

    For me, that is enough.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Maybe a Good Life Is Smaller Than We Think

    Maybe a Good Life Is Smaller Than We Think

    I grew up poor enough to know what government cheese tasted like.

    Powdered milk too.

    Those were not stories we told about hardship. They were groceries.

    They were what helped get a family from one part of the month to the other.

    When you grow up like that, the good life can take on a particular shape in your imagination.

    It gets bigger than necessary.

    A giant house.

    Luxury cars.

    Vacations in places you have never seen.

    A refrigerator full of food, so nobody has to worry about running out.

    Bills paid before they are due.

    Maybe even the kind of life we used to see on television.

    When the electricity was on.

    The houses looked enormous.

    The kitchens looked spotless.

    Nobody seemed to worry about the light bill.

    Nobody opened a refrigerator and stood there doing arithmetic.

    Nobody looked at the last few slices of bread and wondered how many people still needed to eat.

    On television, there always seemed to be enough.

    More than enough.

    As a child, I thought that was the good life.

    Maybe that made sense.

    When you don’t have much, abundance looks a lot like happiness.

    You imagine that if you can just get far enough away from what you knew, everything will finally feel safe.

    A bigger house will do it.

    A nicer car.

    More money.

    A vacation where nobody has to count every dollar before ordering dinner.

    I don’t judge the younger version of myself for wanting those things.

    He was trying to imagine security with the only language he had been given.

    Money.

    Space.

    Possessions.

    Distance.

    The farther you could get from government cheese and powdered milk, the better you must be doing.

    But getting older has a way of changing definitions.

    Sometimes you simply wake up one day and realize you are no longer chasing the things you once thought would prove you had made it.

    I don’t live in a giant house.

    I live in a nice apartment.

    And I like it.

    I have an SUV that I love, and unless somebody takes the keys away from me one day, I plan to keep it forever.

    It gets me where I need to go.

    It is comfortable.

    It is mine.

    I have a small group of close friends.

    Not a crowd.

    Not a room full of people.

    Just a few of the best friends I have ever known.

    People I trust.

    People I can laugh with.

    People who know enough about me to understand when I am talking and when I am avoiding what I really mean.

    There was a time when I might have looked at this life and thought it was smaller than what I wanted.

    Now I wonder if I was measuring with the wrong ruler.

    Maybe the good life is smaller than we think.

    Not smaller in value.

    Smaller in scale.

    Maybe it does not require a mansion.

    Maybe it requires a place where you feel at peace when you close the door.

    Maybe it doesn’t require a luxury car.

    Maybe it requires something reliable that takes you home.

    Maybe it does not require being surrounded by people.

    Maybe it requires a few who would notice if you disappeared.

    Maybe it does not require eating in expensive restaurants.

    Maybe sometimes it is knowing there is enough food in the refrigerator and not having to worry about what will be left next week.

    There are things you notice differently when you grew up without enough.

    A full pantry can feel like wealth.

    A paid electric bill can feel like wealth.

    Being able to turn on the air conditioning without fear can feel like wealth.

    Buying something at the grocery store because you want it, instead of because it is the cheapest option, can feel like wealth.

    Going home to a place you actually enjoy living can feel like wealth.

    Having someone call and ask how you are, and knowing they really want the answer, can feel like wealth.

    None of these things photograph especially well.

    That may be part of the problem.

    We live in a world that is very good at showing us what success is supposed to look like.

    But somewhere along the way, we can begin confusing a life that looks impressive with a life that feels good to live.

    Those are not always the same thing.

    You can own a large house and dread going home.

    You can sit in an expensive car and feel completely alone.

    You can stand on a beach halfway around the world and still carry every worry you packed with you.

    Money can solve many problems.

    I would never pretend otherwise.

    People who have lived without enough usually understand that better than anybody.

    Enough matters.

    Maybe more than excess.

    There is a particular peace in enough.

    Enough food.

    Enough money to breathe.

    Enough space.

    Enough people who love you.

    Enough time to sit still for a while.

    Enough confidence in yourself that you no longer need everything you own to explain your worth to somebody else.

    That kind of enough does not make much noise.

    It doesn’t need to.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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  • Why Do We Stop Noticing?

    Why Do We Stop Noticing?

    There is something I’ve been guilty of lately.

    Not noticing.

    If it were left up to me, I could happily spend most of my days at home. I’d write, cook, read, and if I needed my daily dose of sunshine, I’d probably just stand in the doorway for a few minutes and call it enough.

    I know that’s part of who I am.

    So every day I make myself go outside.

    I go for a walk to get my steps in. To spend a little time in the sunshine. To breathe fresh air. It’s become part of my routine, and I genuinely enjoy it.

    At least, I thought I did.

    Before I leave the house, I do what I’ve done almost every day for months.

    I start my Apple Watch.

    I put in my earbuds.

    I choose something to listen to.

    Then I start walking.

    There’s nothing wrong with any of those things.

    But recently I realized something.

    Almost all of my attention was somewhere other than where I was.

    I was watching my pace.

    Checking my distance.

    Listening to music.

    Thinking about how many steps I had left before I reached my goal.

    My body had switched to autopilot.

    I was aware of people around me, but mostly as objects to walk around.

    I wasn’t really seeing my neighborhood.

    I was simply moving through it.

    One morning I caught myself looking down at my watch again.

    I looked up.

    The mountains were there.

    They had been there every morning.

    The sky was a deeper blue than I remembered.

    A breeze moved through the trees.

    Somewhere nearby, birds were carrying on a conversation I had apparently been missing for weeks.

    None of those things had suddenly appeared.

    I had.

    Or maybe that’s not quite true.

    My body had been showing up.

    My attention hadn’t.

    That made me wonder how often I was doing the same thing in the rest of my life.

    How many meals had I eaten while thinking about what came next instead of tasting what was already on my plate?

    How many conversations had I rushed through because my mind was already working on tomorrow?

    How many mornings had I traded for another item on my to-do list?

    I have spent so much of my life trying to be more efficient.

    Looking for the best way to do something.

    The quickest way.

    The smartest way.

    Anything to save a few minutes.

    And to be fair, that mindset has helped me in a lot of ways.

    My walks have improved my health.

    My Apple Watch has encouraged me to keep moving.

    The watch wasn’t the problem.

    Somewhere along the way, I realized I had become more interested in finishing my walk than experiencing it.

    I wasn’t only trying to reach a step goal.

    I was trying to live a healthier life.

    Part of living a healthier life is noticing the world you’re walking through.

    The sunshine.

    The mountains.

    The changing seasons.

    The maintenance man who always waves.

    The ordinary things that quietly become the memories we miss one day.

    Maybe beauty hasn’t become rare.

    Maybe we’ve simply become busy.

    Busy enough to walk through beautiful places without ever really seeing them.

    Tomorrow I’ll probably still wear my Apple Watch.

    I’ll probably still listen to music.

    I’ll probably still count my steps.

    But I think I’ll leave one earbud out for a little while.

    Because it would be a shame to spend my whole life moving through beautiful places…

    …without ever really noticing them.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • One Step Up

    One Step Up

    Sometimes a song stays with you because you realize it has been telling your story all along.

    There are lyrics from Bruce Springsteen’s “One Step Up” that have followed me for years:

    “When I look at myself I don’t see

    The man I wanted to be.

    Somewhere along the line I slipped off track.

    I’m caught moving one Step up and two steps back.”

    The first time I heard those words, I understood them.

    The older I’ve become, the more they’ve come to understand me.

    When I was young, I had a picture of the life I would live.

    It wasn’t extravagant. I wasn’t dreaming of fame or fortune. What I wanted was much quieter than that.

    I wanted to be married.

    I wanted a home that always felt full. Children running through the hallway. Grandchildren years later. Birthdays that needed another chair pulled up to the table. Sunday dinners that lingered long after the plates were empty because no one was in a hurry to leave.

    I thought I would grow into that man.

    Life had different plans.

    Some dreams end all at once.

    Others fade so slowly that one day you realize you’ve been mourning them without ever knowing when they disappeared.

    There isn’t always someone to blame.

    Sometimes life simply unfolds differently than the version we carried inside ourselves.

    For years, I measured my life against the man I expected to become. Every birthday became another quiet comparison. Another reminder of the distance between the future I imagined and the present I was living.

    That can become a cruel way to measure a life.

    Because the mirror only reflects what is.

    It never shows what has been survived.

    It doesn’t reveal the disappointments that taught you compassion. It doesn’t show the losses that made you gentler. It cannot measure the strength it took to keep moving after discovering life wasn’t interested in following your plans.

    Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking where I had gone wrong.

    Age has a way of changing the questions.

    I no longer ask myself as often, Why didn’t my life become what I imagined?

    Instead, I find myself asking something else.

    What kind of man would I have been?

    If I had married.

    If the house had been filled with children.

    If life had unfolded exactly as I had hoped.

    Would I have learned empathy without loneliness?

    Would I have become a writer if I had been busy living the life I thought I wanted?

    Would I have paid such close attention to ordinary moments if everything had come easily?

    I honestly don’t know.

    We spend so much time grieving the lives we never lived that we forget those lives would have shaped us differently.

    The husband I imagined.

    The father I dreamed of becoming.

    The grandfather sitting quietly at the end of a crowded table.

    He would have been another version of me.

    But not necessarily a better one.

    Maybe he would have been happier.

    Maybe he would have been wiser.

    Or maybe he would have missed the lessons this life insisted on teaching.

    Because while I didn’t become the man I expected, I became someone else.

    Someone who learned that kindness often grows where certainty once lived.

    Someone who discovered that stories matter because they remind us we aren’t walking alone.

    Someone who writes in the hope that another person, somewhere, might recognize themselves and feel just a little less alone.

    Maybe that writer could only have been born from this life.

    Not the one I planned.

    But the one I was given.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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