The Kind of Man I Refused to Become

There are two versions of myself I have spent a lot of my life trying not to become.

The first is the young man I used to be.

The second is the man I could have become if I had allowed everything that happened to me later in life to turn me bitter.

Those are two very different battles.

One was about leaving behind the choices I was making.

The other was about protecting the person I had worked so hard to become.

And I think that second battle surprised me the most.

Because I had already changed.

I had already spent years trying to do better, building a business, raising my children, learning new skills, and creating a life that looked nothing like the one I was heading toward when I was younger.

Then life happened.

And suddenly, I found myself having to fight not to lose the parts of me I was finally proud of.

I have learned that becoming a better person is not something you accomplish once.

Sometimes life tests the very things you worked the hardest to change.

And sometimes the hardest part of growth is refusing to become somebody you already fought to leave behind.

The first man I refused to become

When my first daughter was born, I knew I needed to make changes.

I was young.

I had made bad decisions.

I had spent too much time around the wrong people, doing things that were not taking me anywhere good.

I had potential. I had interests. I had skills.

But I was not using them the way I should have been.

Having my daughter changed how I looked at all of that.

Suddenly, the consequences of my decisions were not just mine anymore.

I did not want to risk missing her childhood because I was in trouble.

I did not want to spend my life doing things that could take me away from her.

I wanted to build something.

So I started trying.

I took the things I knew how to do with computers, websites, and technology and started putting them toward something legitimate.

I started building websites.

I started trying to build a business.

In a way, I changed my hustle.

I still had the same curiosity.

The same drive to learn.

The same desire to figure things out and make something happen.

But now I wanted those things to lead somewhere good.

Somewhere I could be proud of.

Somewhere my daughter could be proud of.

I did not change overnight.

I still made mistakes.

I still had a lot to learn about the people I surrounded myself with, the decisions I made, and what being responsible actually meant.

But the direction had changed.

For the first time, I was not just trying to get through life. I was trying to build one.

Sometimes the smallest moments teach you the biggest lessons

I remember a time when I was hanging out with friends at a studio.

We were working on music.

I was helping with recording, producing, engineering, and whatever else we were playing around with that night.

I have always loved learning things, and music was another creative outlet I enjoyed.

There was nothing particularly wrong with what we were doing.

We were having fun.

Creating something.

Learning.

But I stayed out too late.

And the next morning, I had a daddy-daughter donut event with my little girl.

I went.

Of course I went.

But I was exhausted.

I remember sitting there, struggling to enjoy something I had been looking forward to because I was so tired.

She had a great time.

I have pictures from that day.

As far as I know, she does not remember anything being wrong.

But I remember.

I remember wishing I had gone home earlier.

Wishing I had gotten more sleep.

Wishing I had been able to give that moment all of me.

It was not some enormous failure.

Nobody got hurt.

Nothing terrible happened.

But it taught me something I have carried ever since.

You can be doing something good and still make a decision that takes away from something more important.

I did not need to stop enjoying music.

I did not need to stop spending time with friends.

I needed to start thinking more carefully about what came afterward.

That is what growth looks like sometimes.

Not some dramatic transformation.

Just realizing you could have done something better and making sure you remember it the next time.

Then life tested everything I had been building

Years later, I was in a very different place.

I had been working hard.

Building.

Learning.

Growing.

My wife and I were creating a life together.

We were raising our family and looking forward to the future.

We had so much to be happy about.

Then one of the hardest periods of my life began.

My time with one of my children changed abruptly, and the pain of that separation was unlike anything I had experienced.

One day, I had been accustomed to seeing my child almost every day.

Then I was facing a reality where that was no longer happening.

It broke me for a while.

I do not think there is a better way to describe it.

You try to pick yourself up.

Dust yourself off.

Fix your hat.

Keep going.

But some things hurt in ways you cannot simply walk off.

And as I tried to understand what was happening, I became increasingly concerned about things I believed had been said and understood about me long before I knew about them.

That made everything harder.

I felt like I was fighting to be understood while trying to survive losing something that meant more to me than almost anything.

And I reacted.

Sometimes badly.

Not because I had suddenly forgotten everything I had learned about being a better person.

But because I was hurting.

I was desperate to correct what I believed was wrong.

I wanted people to listen.

I wanted them to look.

I wanted them to understand.

And somewhere in all of that, I started losing sight of something important.

Even when you believe you are fighting for the right thing, you still have to be careful about the person you become while fighting for it.

Being right does not mean every reaction is right

This was one of the hardest lessons for me.

There were times when I was so focused on correcting something that I did not think enough about how I was approaching people.

I wanted answers.

I wanted conversations.

But sometimes I approached people in ways that probably made honest conversations less likely.

Instead of asking someone to sit down and talk, I might confront them.

Instead of calmly explaining what I was concerned about, I might let my frustration speak first.

And even when I believed I was completely justified in feeling hurt, I eventually had to recognize that my approach was not always helping.

I could see that some of my reactions were closing doors instead of opening them.

That hurt to realize.

Because I was not trying to make enemies.

I was trying to be understood.

But sometimes your reaction becomes the only thing people notice.

They do not see the pain underneath it.

They do not see what happened before.

They do not see the years of work you put into becoming somebody different.

They just see the moment in front of them.

Looking back, I wish I had approached some of those conversations differently.

More respectfully.

More patiently.

Less confrontationally.

Maybe the outcome would have been exactly the same.

I cannot know that.

But at least I could look back and say I handled myself the way I wanted to.

That matters to me now.

There is a difference between defending yourself and retaliating

I used to believe very strongly in an eye for an eye.

You hurt me?

Okay.

Now watch what happens.

It was not necessarily about hurting somebody just because I was hurting.

It was about reacting when I believed somebody had deliberately done something wrong to me.

But I have learned that retaliation can disguise itself as defense.

You tell yourself you are protecting yourself.

You tell yourself you are standing up for what is right.

You tell yourself the other person started it.

And maybe they did.

But eventually you have to ask a different question.

What am I actually accomplishing?

Is this fixing anything?

Is this protecting anybody?

Is this making the situation better?

Or am I simply making sure the other person feels some of what I felt?

Because those are not the same thing.

I think there were times when I confused the two.

And I do not want to be that man anymore.

I do not want every hurt to require an answer.

I do not want every insult to require a response.

I do not want to spend my life proving that I can hurt somebody back.

There are better things I can do with my time.

Better things I can build.

Better things I can give my children.

Just because you can fight back does not mean fighting back is what will move you forward.

Anger cost me more than I realized

I do not want to make this sound like I spent my entire adult life angry.

I did not.

A lot of my struggles with anger were when I was a child, growing up in an environment where anger was everywhere.

By the time I was older, I had already made tremendous progress with that.

Anger was never something I routinely directed at my children.

In fact, they were one of the biggest reasons I kept learning patience.

But when my later trauma happened, I had reactions that were different from the way I normally handled life.

And those reactions cost me.

Time.

Energy.

Focus.

Opportunities.

Some of the attention I should have been putting into my work and the things I wanted to create.

I sometimes became so focused on the situation that was hurting me that I had less room for the things that had been helping me grow.

And that is one of the things I regret.

Not simply being angry.

Anger is an emotion.

Sometimes it makes perfect sense.

But allowing anger to direct your choices can cost you far more than the moment you are angry about.

I know that now.

And I think one of the most difficult realizations was understanding that even after I stopped being angry, I still had not necessarily found peace.

Those are different things.

You can stop wanting to fight.

You can stop wanting to retaliate.

You can even stop thinking about certain people with anger.

And still struggle to feel peaceful about what happened.

That is something I am still working on.

Becoming stronger is not the same as becoming harder

Pain changes people.

I do not think there is much getting around that.

When you go through something difficult enough, you are not going to come out exactly the same.

But I think there is a difference between becoming stronger and becoming harder.

Becoming harder means you start treating everything like it is going to hurt you.

Every new person becomes suspicious.

Every opportunity feels like a trap.

Every disagreement feels like another attack.

Eventually, you can become so concerned with protecting yourself that you stop allowing anything good to reach you.

I do not want that.

I want to be stronger.

I want to recognize warning signs.

I want to set better boundaries.

I want to be more careful about who I trust and who I allow into my life.

But I still want to make friends.

Still want to connect with people.

Still want to build things with others.

Still want to be kind.

Still want to love.

I do not want to lose those parts of myself just because I learned that people can hurt me.

For a while, I think some of what I experienced made me harder.

But trying to find peace has started softening some of those edges again.

Not making me weaker.

Making me more comfortable with the fact that I cannot control everything.

I can be cautious without being afraid of everybody.

I can have boundaries without hating people.

I can protect myself without shutting out the world.

I want to protect my heart without turning it into something nobody can reach.

The people you surround yourself with matter

One of the hardest patterns I have had to break is choosing the wrong people to be around.

That goes all the way back to my younger years.

I have always been curious.

Always wanted to learn.

Always wanted to try things.

But I did not always surround myself with people who were good for me.

Sometimes I trusted people I should not have trusted.

Sometimes I ignored things I should have paid attention to.

Sometimes I kept people around long after I should have moved on.

That took me a long time to change.

Longer than I wish it had.

But I think I am finally getting much better at it.

I have learned that being a good person does not require giving everybody unlimited access to your life.

You can be kind and still have boundaries.

You can wish somebody well and still keep your distance.

You can care about people without allowing them to repeatedly hurt you.

And you can move on from a relationship without needing to turn that person into an enemy.

I wish I understood that when I was younger.

It would have saved me a lot of trouble.

My wife showed me another kind of strength

I cannot talk about the man I have become without talking about my wife.

She has been one of the most important people in my growth.

And not because she simply agrees with everything I do.

She does not.

That is part of why it works.

We were friends before we were together.

She knew me.

She saw parts of my life that other people only heard about later.

And through some of the hardest periods of my life, she has continued believing in me.

But she has also challenged me.

She has told me when she thought I was reacting badly.

She has pointed things out that I needed to see.

She has helped me slow down and look at situations differently.

And I have tried to do the same for her.

We have always pushed each other to learn and grow.

Sometimes we would talk about something we wanted to do, and then we would just go figure out how to do it.

Years ago, we bought a house that people said we would never be able to buy.

Then we tore it down to the studs and rebuilt it ourselves.

We learned.

We worked.

We figured things out together.

That is what our relationship has felt like to me in so many ways.

Building something.

Taking on something difficult.

Helping each other learn how to do it.

She has told me that watching how I learn and grow inspired her.

But watching her do the same thing has inspired me just as much.

I have watched her learn things she did not know how to do the day before and suddenly become incredible at them.

That pushes me.

It reminds me that we are capable of much more than we sometimes realize.

And through everything, we have continued trying to become better people together.

That kind of love and support is something I am incredibly grateful for.

Because there is a difference between somebody standing beside you while you make mistakes and somebody helping you become the person you want to be.

She has done both.

My children keep reminding me what matters

My children have taught me more about the man I want to be than I could probably ever explain.

My oldest daughter gave me the first reason to start changing.

My younger children have continued giving me reasons to keep growing.

And my son has given me some memories I will carry for the rest of my life.

I remember competing in cybersecurity and OSINT competitions.

Sometimes I was competing by myself against teams of multiple people.

I did well in some of them.

Really well.

And my kids celebrated those moments with me.

My son once drew me a little trophy on a piece of paper.

I still think about that.

Because I was proud of what I had accomplished.

But seeing him proud of me meant something completely different.

In another competition, my daughter and I celebrated by playing video games together.

Just having a game night.

Those moments meant more to me than the rankings.

More than the recognition.

More than proving I could compete with anybody.

It was sharing something I loved with people I loved.

And seeing that they were proud of me.

That is the kind of life I want.

Not one where I spend every day fighting about who I am.

One where I get to show my children who I am through what I do.

One where they see me create things.

Learn things.

Fail at things.

Try again.

And maybe one day do things I never thought I could do.

I want to build something they can be proud of.

Something that gives them opportunities.

Something they can learn from.

Something that reminds them their father kept trying, even when life was difficult.

Forgiveness and peace are not the same thing

I do not believe forgiveness is always required before you can move forward.

I know that because there are things I have struggled to forgive.

There are people I am not ready to forgive.

There are experiences that hurt too deeply for me to simply say everything is okay.

And I do not think I should have to pretend otherwise.

But I am learning that not forgiving somebody does not mean you have to stay angry with them.

You do not have to retaliate.

You do not have to spend every day thinking about them.

You do not even have to hate them.

You can simply keep living.

Keep building.

Keep finding happiness.

Maybe one day forgiveness comes.

Maybe it does not.

I want to keep working toward it where I can.

There are people I wish I could sit down with today and apologize to for the way I handled things.

Even people I believe hurt me.

Not because I suddenly think every part of what happened was okay.

But because I can look at my own actions and recognize things I wish I had done differently.

I wish some conversations had happened with more honesty.

More patience.

More willingness to listen.

Maybe that would not have changed the outcome.

But it might have changed what we all carried away from it.

And I think that matters.

You can acknowledge that somebody hurt you and still take responsibility for how you responded.

That is not weakness.

That is growth.

I am still working on myself

I do not want to write this like I have everything figured out.

I do not.

There are things I am still working on.

Trust is a big one.

Being too hard on myself is another.

I can look back at something that happened years ago and think about all the ways I could have handled it differently.

Sometimes I remember a conversation or an odd comment from years before and wonder whether I missed something important.

Could I have asked another question?

Could I have recognized something sooner?

Could I have prevented something?

Could I have protected somebody better?

I can spend a lot of time thinking about those things.

Too much time sometimes.

And I have learned that constantly looking backward can make it harder to decide what you are going to do next.

You become so focused on what you should have done that you stop making room for what you can still do.

I am trying to change that.

There have been periods in my life when I was not the person I wanted to be.

There have been setbacks.

Times I regressed.

Times I struggled more than I expected.

But when I look at the last ten years, and especially the last few, I can see how far I have come.

I may not be where I would have been if everything had gone differently.

But I am proud of where I am despite what I have been through.

And I do not think there has ever been a version of myself I have been more proud of than the person I am today.

Not because I am finished.

Because I know how much work it took to get here.

What I would tell someone who wants to get even

If a younger man came to me filled with anger, wanting to get even with people who hurt him, I think I would ask him two questions.

What does that get them?

And what does that get you?

Really think about it.

Let’s say you retaliate.

Let’s say everything goes exactly the way you want.

You hurt the person who hurt you.

You get the last word.

You make them feel what you felt.

Now what?

Did that solve the original problem?

Did it bring back what you lost?

Did it repair the relationship?

Did it protect the people you love?

Did it make tomorrow any better?

Or did it just create another problem you now have to deal with?

That is something I wish I had understood earlier.

Retaliation can feel incredibly justified when you believe you are in the right.

Especially when you are hurting.

Especially when somebody you love is hurting.

But feeling justified does not mean you are making a good decision.

Sometimes the stronger thing is doing nothing right then.

Not forever.

Not ignoring real problems.

Just refusing to let pain make the decision for you.

Give yourself time.

Think.

Look at what you actually want to accomplish.

And then choose the action that helps you get there.

Sometimes that action is standing up and speaking.

Sometimes it is getting help.

Sometimes it is setting a boundary.

And sometimes it is walking away.

Do not confuse getting even with getting better.

Those are two very different directions.

The man I hope my children remember

I do not need my children to remember me as perfect.

They will not.

I am not.

But I hope they remember how much I loved them.

How much I played with them.

How often I tried to be there.

How I listened.

How I encouraged them to think for themselves.

How I tried to help them become the people they wanted to be instead of forcing them to become who I thought they should be.

I hope they remember that when life got difficult, I did not simply give up.

Maybe I stumbled.

Maybe I fell.

Maybe I needed time to get back up.

But I kept trying.

And I hope they understand that I never looked at my mistakes and simply decided they were good enough.

I kept working on them.

Kept learning.

Kept trying to do better.

I hope my children grow into people who accomplish things I never could.

I hope they are kinder than me.

Wiser than me.

More patient.

More successful in whatever matters to them.

I hope they build lives that make them happy.

And if I can help give them the foundation for that, I will consider that one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

The two men I carry with me

When I think about the two versions of myself, the one I could have become and the one I am still becoming, I do not see two completely different people.

I see the same person standing at different places.

One is struggling.

Maybe angry.

Maybe lost.

Maybe making decisions that are going to hurt him later.

The other has learned some things.

He has been knocked down.

He has gotten back up.

He is still imperfect.

Still figuring things out.

But he is trying to build something good.

If I could sit those two men across from each other, I would want them to learn from each other.

I would want the struggling one to look across the table and see that things can get better.

That he is not destined to remain where he is.

That the mistakes he made do not have to become his entire life.

And I would want the man doing better to look across the table and remember.

Remember where he came from.

Remember the roads he does not want to travel again.

Remember how easily things can go in the wrong direction when you stop paying attention to your choices.

Remember why he started trying in the first place.

Because in a lot of ways, I live with both of those men.

I know who I used to be.

I know the road I was heading down.

And I have seen how pain can tempt a person to head back toward places they worked hard to escape.

I still do not know exactly how to become every part of the man I hope to be.

I am figuring that out as I go.

But I know something important.

I know the kind of man I refuse to become.

I refuse to become somebody who hurts people simply because he was hurt.

I refuse to become somebody who lets bitterness decide his future.

I refuse to stop loving people because loving people sometimes hurts.

I refuse to stop building because life has knocked things down.

And I refuse to let my children look back and remember a father who gave up on himself.

I cannot promise I will never make another mistake.

I cannot promise life will never hurt again.

I cannot promise I will always handle everything perfectly.

But I can promise myself that I will keep trying.

Keep learning.

Keep loving.

Keep building.

And keep choosing the direction I want my life to go.

Because the kind of man I refused to become is not nearly as important as the man I am still working to be.