Tag: personal growth

  • 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

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

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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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    Resources for Hard Times

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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

    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

  • 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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    Resources for Hard Times

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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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  • The Work No One Sees

    The Work No One Sees

    The Dishes Almost Kept Me From Learning to Cook.

    I write a lot about learning the metric system.

    It probably seems like an odd thing to get excited about, but switching from cups and teaspoons to weighing ingredients changed the way I cook. Recipes became more consistent. Bread rose the way it was supposed to. Sauces tasted the way I imagined they would. The more I cooked, the more I realized that precision wasn’t taking the joy out of cooking.

    It was giving me confidence.

    I started cooking because I love food.

    Good food.

    Not expensive food.

    Just food made with care.

    For a long time, I thought learning to cook would be the hardest part.

    I was wrong.

    Believe it or not, what almost kept me from cooking wasn’t the recipes.

    It was the dishes.

    The pots and pans.

    The cutting boards.

    The greasy stove.

    The food splattered across the counter.

    The crumbs on the floor.

    All the little reminders that every good meal leaves something behind.

    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made a meal that turned out exactly the way I hoped. I’d taste as I cooked, adjusting a little salt here, another pinch of pepper there, until everything felt right.

    Then I’d sit down and realize something.

    I wasn’t hungry anymore.

    I’d spent so much time smelling the food and tasting the food that by the time dinner was finished, I was exhausted.

    The kitchen looked like a disaster.

    And now I had another job waiting for me.

    That’s when I realized something.

    Cooking isn’t just about cooking.

    It’s about planning.

    These days I rarely cook for just one meal.

    If I’m already chopping vegetables, washing dishes, heating the oven, and dirtying a sink full of bowls, I might as well make enough for a few days. I try to keep a few meal-prepped meals in the refrigerator or freezer for the evenings when I don’t feel like cooking at all.

    That one change made cooking easier.

    But another lesson changed everything.

    I learned something embarrassingly simple.

    The dishwasher has to be empty before I start cooking.

    Otherwise, everything backs up.

    Dirty dishes stay in the sink because there’s nowhere for them to go.

    Bowls pile up.

    Utensils pile up.

    Before long, one small task I skipped yesterday becomes today’s biggest obstacle.

    It was such a simple lesson.

    But I don’t think it’s only about dishwashers.

    How often do we avoid doing something we love because of one small part we don’t enjoy?

    Maybe it isn’t cooking.

    Maybe it’s writing.

    The writing isn’t the hard part.

    Editing is.

    Maybe it’s exercising.

    The workout isn’t the hard part.

    Putting on your shoes is.

    Sometimes the thing standing between us and the life we want isn’t the dream.

    It’s the cleanup.

    And then there’s another lesson every cook eventually learns.

    The food doesn’t always turn out the way you imagined.

    Sometimes you follow the recipe exactly, and something still feels off.

    Sometimes you try a new ingredient, and it simply doesn’t work.

    Sometimes dinner is just… okay.

    And that’s okay.

    Not every meal has to become your signature dish.

    Not every attempt has to be perfect.

    Every meal teaches you something.

    Every mistake teaches you something.

    The next one is usually a little better.

    I think writing works the same way.

    Most people only see the finished essay.

    They don’t see the sentences that were deleted.

    The paragraphs rewritten five times.

    The moments you stare at the screen wondering why the words won’t come.

    They don’t see the work before the work.

    The same is true of cooking.

    People see the meal.

    They don’t see the planning.

    They don’t see the grocery list.

    They don’t see the dishes.

    They don’t see the quiet work that made any of it possible.

    I’ve come to believe that’s true of almost everything worthwhile.

    The parts people applaud are usually the parts everyone can see.

    The parts that change us are usually the ones no one ever notices.

    Maybe that’s why we should give ourselves a little more grace.

    The work no one sees is still work.

    Sometimes it’s the dishes.

    Sometimes it’s the planning.

    Sometimes it’s simply emptying yesterday’s dishwasher so today’s work has somewhere to begin.

    And more often than not…

    It’s the work that matters most.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Finding Your Place

    Finding Your Place

    Sometimes a television show stops entertaining you and quietly begins asking questions about your own life.

    Season 2 of The Bear did that for me.

    The Second season of The Bear is filled with food.

    Beautiful food. Precise food. Food arranged with tweezers and intention. Food that carries the weight of memory, ambition, grief, and expectation.

    But the best thing the season serves is not a plate.

    It is change.

    Not the kind of change people announce loudly. The change in The Bear is quieter than that. It comes through repetition. Through discomfort. Through people being sent away from what they know so they can return with a clearer understanding of who they might become.

    Marcus leaves the familiar kitchen and enters another world. He studies pastry with patience and humility. He learns that excellence is not magic. It is attention. It is noticing texture, temperature, timing. It is doing the same thing again, not because the first attempt was worthless, but because care asks us to try once more.

    Tina goes to culinary school.

    That may not sound revolutionary to some people. But there are moments in life when being offered the chance to learn becomes a form of recognition. Someone looks at you and says, perhaps without saying it directly, There is more in you.

    And then there is Richie.

    Richie may be the clearest example of what the season is trying to tell us.

    He begins as a man who feels the world moving without him. He is loud because he is uncertain. Defensive because he is afraid. He mistakes familiarity for usefulness and anger for authority. He has spent so much time believing he does not belong anywhere that he has begun to behave as if belonging itself is a lie.

    Then he is sent to another restaurant.

    At first, he believes he is being punished.

    That is often how growth feels when it begins.

    We think we have been removed because we are unwanted. We do not always understand that distance can sometimes reveal what closeness has hidden. Away from the noise of his own kitchen, Richie begins to see the work differently.

    He polishes forks.

    He observes.

    He learns the names of dishes.

    He watches how a dining room moves.

    And slowly, he begins to understand that service is not submission. It is not weakness. It is not pretending that the customer is always right.

    Service is attention.

    It is knowing that someone has saved money for months to sit at a table. That a meal may be celebrating a birthday, a promotion, a marriage, a farewell. That what feels like another shift to the staff may become a memory someone carries for the rest of their life.

    Richie begins to understand that his work affects people.

    Not someday.

    Now.

    A glass placed carefully. A question answered with patience. A surprise offered because someone was paying attention. Small actions, perhaps. But lives are often shaped by small actions.

    By the end of his training, Richie has not become a different person.

    He has become more fully himself.

    That distinction matters.

    Growth is not always about becoming unrecognizable. Sometimes it is about clearing away the fear, resentment, and confusion that kept us from seeing our own usefulness. Richie discovers that he has a gift for people. For reading a room. For making someone feel welcomed. For understanding the emotional rhythm of a place.

    He finds his place.

    And once he finds it, something changes in him.

    He no longer wants merely to be included.

    He wants to improve.

    That may be one of the most important transitions a person can make.

    There is a difference between wanting recognition and wanting mastery. Recognition asks, Do you see me? Mastery asks, How can I become worthy of the responsibility I have been given?

    I think about that when I write.

    Every day I sit with words.

    Some days they come easily. Other days they arrive slowly, dragging doubt behind them. There are sentences I admire in the moment and question the next morning. Some pieces feel finished until I read them again and see all the places where I stopped too soon.

    But every time I write, I want the next thing to be better.

    Not only for me.

    For the person who takes the time to read it.

    That reader may never know how long I sat with a paragraph. They may never see the sentences I removed or the endings I softened. They may never know how many times I wondered whether the piece was honest enough, clear enough, useful enough.

    They should not have to know.

    The effort is part of the service.

    When someone gives you their attention, they are giving you something they cannot recover. Time. A few quiet minutes from a life already full of demands. They could have gone elsewhere. They could have closed the page.

    But they stayed.

    That matters to me.

    So I want the words to meet them with care.

    I want each essay to say, in its own way, I knew you were coming, so I prepared something.

    That does not mean every piece will be perfect.

    Perfection is often another form of fear. It can keep us polishing forever, afraid to place anything on the table. The better goal is honesty joined with discipline. To bring what we have learned. To respect the reader. To leave the work a little stronger than we found it.

    That is what Marcus learns.

    That is what Tina learns.

    That is what Richie finally learns.

    Skill is not only talent.

    It is responsibility.

    It is the willingness to be taught. 

    There is tenderness in that.

    We often treat self-improvement as punishment. We speak to ourselves harshly, as if shame were the only tool capable of shaping a better life.

    But shame rarely builds anything that can stand.

    Growth needs honesty, yes.

    It also needs patience.

    A person must be able to look at who they have been without believing they are condemned to remain there. They must be able to say, I was wrong. I was careless. I did not understand.

    And then, perhaps more importantly:

    I can learn.

    Season 2 of The Bear understands this.

    It shows us that we are not finished.

    That the person we have been is not the final draft.

    That finding our place does not mean the work is over.

    It means we finally know where to begin.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • What’s your biggest dream?

    What’s your biggest dream?

    To write a book worthy of a Pulitzer Prize.

    Not because I need an award. Awards gather dust. They eventually become another object on a shelf.

    What I hope for is something quieter.

    I hope to write something that outlives me. A book that someone opens years from now and still finds truth in. A book that reminds a stranger they are not alone, or helps someone understand a history they never knew they carried.

    Most of all, I hope my words become proof that I was here.

    That I lived. That I paid attention. That I loved enough to write it all down.

    I hope that someday, someone I’ve never met will turn the final page, sit in the silence for a moment, and begin asking questions. Who was this man? What kind of life shaped him? Why did these stories matter so much to him? What was he trying to leave behind?

    If they dig deeply enough into the words, I hope they’ll find the answers. Not because I ever wrote about myself directly, but because every honest sentence carries a little of its author within it.

    Long after my voice has gone silent, I hope the stories remain. Not to make me unforgettable, but to leave behind a small piece of light for whoever comes next.

    If that journey one day leads to a Pulitzer Prize, I would receive it with deep gratitude. But the prize has never been the dream.

    The dream has always been to leave something behind that time cannot easily erase.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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  • Fear Is Not a Teacher

    Fear Is Not a Teacher

    As I have said before, I have been watching The Bear.

    Not quickly.

    The show is often too intense for me to sit through all at once. I watch for a while, feel the pressure building in the room, and eventually step away. Sometimes I come back later that evening. Sometimes another day.

    There is much about the show I admire.

    The food.

    The discipline.

    The quiet beauty of people trying to make something precise in a world that rarely is.

    But there is one thing I continue to struggle with.

    Why are so many of the people who are supposed to be good at their work also written as though cruelty is part of the uniform?

    Why does talent so often arrive shouting?

    Why must skill enter the room convinced it is a god?

    Perhaps this is only television. Perhaps the writers believe conflict is more interesting than kindness, and humiliation makes better drama than patience. Maybe Hollywood has decided that every great kitchen must be run like a battlefield, every chef must carry the emotional habits of a tyrant, and every young cook must first be broken before they can be trusted to create anything beautiful.

    But I do not believe people have to be broken to become better.

    I believe broken people often spend years trying to recover from those who claimed to be helping.

    I know something about that.

    I suffered abuse as a child.

    I experienced abuse in the military.

    I knew some of it in marriage.

    The settings changed. The language changed. The uniforms changed. But fear has a familiar shape.

    It teaches you to be afraid.

    It does not teach you how to grow.

    That distinction matters.

    Some people will tell you fear made them stronger. Some will say the shouting sharpened them, that humiliation prepared them, that being treated like garbage was the price of excellence.

    I do not doubt their experience.

    But surviving a method does not prove the method was good.

    A person can learn while being mistreated. Human beings are remarkably adaptive. We learn in war zones. We learn in broken homes. We learn beneath bosses who mistake intimidation for leadership.

    But that does not mean the abuse was necessary.

    It means the person found a way to keep growing despite it.

    Too often, we give the cruelty credit for the strength that belonged to the survivor.

    That is one of the oldest tricks in power’s playbook.

    It wounds you, then takes credit for the scar tissue.

    I keep returning to a simple question:

    How do you teach someone who is constantly afraid of you?

    Not how do you make them obey.

    How do you actually teach them?

    Fear narrows the world.

    It makes the mind concentrate on survival. A frightened person is not free to be curious. They are not free to experiment. They are not free to ask the question that might sound foolish but lead somewhere useful.

    They are watching you.

    They are waiting for the next explosion.

    They are trying not to become the day’s example.

    That may produce compliance.

    But compliance is not mastery.

    Fear can teach a person how to avoid mistakes in front of you. It does not always teach them how to understand the work when you are gone.

    Real teaching requires safety.

    Not comfort at all times. Not lowered standards. Not endless praise.

    Safety.

    The kind that allows a person to say, “I don’t understand.”

    The kind that permits them to make an honest mistake without wondering whether their dignity will be taken as payment.

    A good teacher can be demanding.

    But there is a difference between demanding excellence and demanding submission.

    One develops the student.

    The other feeds the ego of the person in charge.

    I think we often confuse the two because arrogance photographs well.

    The shouting chef looks powerful.

    The patient teacher looks ordinary.

    There is nothing glamorous about that kind of instruction.

    It is slow.

    It requires restraint.

    It asks the person with authority to remember that knowledge is not a crown. It is something passed from one pair of hands to another.

    That may be the harder discipline.

    Anyone can humiliate someone who knows less.

    It takes no genius to make a beginner feel small.

    They have already entered the room uncertain. They already know they are behind. Their hands may shake. Their timing may be wrong. Their questions may expose how far they still have to go.

    The easiest thing in the world is to use your experience as a weapon against them.

    The better thing is to use it as shelter.

    To say: I remember not knowing.

    Let me show you again.

    That does not make the standard weaker.

    It makes the teacher stronger.

    I sometimes wonder how many gifted people walked away from their calling because the first person entrusted to guide them decided cruelty was tradition.

    How many cooks stopped cooking.

    How many artists stopped drawing.

    How many children stopped raising their hands.

    How many soldiers learned to hide pain because someone convinced them that being human was a defect.

    We count the ones who endured and call the system effective.

    We rarely count the ones it drove away.

    That is the trouble with cultures built on abuse. They display the survivors as evidence and bury the casualties in silence.

    We see this in kitchens, offices, homes, schools, locker rooms, military units, and marriages.

    The setting changes.

    The wound remains familiar.

    Someone says they are only trying to help.

    Someone says this is how excellence is made.

    Someone says you are too sensitive.

    And after enough time, you begin to wonder whether dignity is something you must surrender to improve.

    It is not.

    You are allowed to learn without being degraded.

    You are allowed to be corrected without being crushed.

    You are allowed to stand in the presence of someone more skilled without kneeling before their ego.

    We should not reward people merely because they are brilliant at the visible part of their work.

    A chef can prepare a magnificent plate and poison the room around it.

    A leader can meet every target and leave everyone beneath them diminished.

    A teacher can know everything about the subject and nothing about the people sitting in front of them.

    Skill matters.

    But skill without humanity is incomplete.

    There is no meal so beautiful that it excuses contempt.

    No achievement so great that it makes cruelty noble.

    No level of expertise that turns another person into something disposable.

    Perhaps that is what I wish more stories understood.

    The most remarkable person in the room is not always the one who can do what no one else can.

    Sometimes it is the one who knows more and still chooses gentleness. 

    The one who remembers that the person standing in front of them is not raw material to be broken into shape.

    They are already a human being.

    The work is to help them become more fully themselves.

    I still watch The Bear.

    I still admire the craft.

    I still want to see what comes out of those kitchens.

    But I find myself hoping for something beyond the perfect plate.

    I want to see a room where excellence does not require casualties.

    A place where the lesson is not carried on the back of fear.

    A kitchen where people are expected to learn, but are not required to suffer for the privilege.

    Because fear may make someone move.

    But if what we want is for people to grow, to think, to create, and eventually to teach someone else, then we must give them something fear never can.

    Room to become good without first being made to feel worthless.

    That is not softness.

    That is instruction.

    Fear can make a person obey.

    Love, patience, and dignity are what teach them to become.

    Kyle J. Hayes

    kylehayesblog.com

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    Resources for Hard Times

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