We All Wear Different Hats, That's A Good Thing

​I helped lead a training at Hungry Mother State Park this week. One of the joys of these trainings is I often get to connect with old friends, and I get to meet a lot of precious new ones.

One of the new friends I met this week was the kind of guy you notice right away - partly because he wears hats. And for him they’re not just an accessory; they’re part of his personality, part of what makes him… him.

He told us he started wearing hats because of an eye problem - cataracts that make light hard on his eyes. But as I watched him throughout the week, and saw the way he smiled when people commented on his hats, I realized he wears them for more than practical reasons.

He wears them because they bring him joy. And in turn, they bring joy to others.

One of the women in the training crochets hats while she watches Netflix movies. She came in one morning with several of her hats, and my new friend naturally latched on to one that was bright purple, playful, almost cartoonish.

He put it on without hesitation. The room filled with laughter, but it wasn’t the kind of laughter that makes fun of someone. It was the kind that celebrates them. The kind of laughter that affirms, “We see you. We like you. We accept you just the way you are.”

On the drive home from the training yesterday, I thought, isn’t that what we’re here for? To feed each other’s personalities, not defeat them. To water the parts of people that make them unique instead of trying to prune them into something safer, smaller, or more manageable.

We live in a world that’s quick to reject. Quick to criticize. Quick to point out flaws. Too often, our personalities get treated like weeds, something to control or cut back rather than something to nurture. But when we reject what makes people unique, we don’t just silence them, we slowly deaden their spirit.

Acceptance, on the other hand, brings life. It breathes oxygen into someone’s lungs. It says, you belong here - not in spite of who you are, but because of who you are.

I saw it in that moment with the purple hat. A man whose eyes have made life a little harder found himself celebrated because of the very thing that set him apart. A woman who spends her evenings crocheting turned her quiet hobby into a gift that created connection. And a room full of people who could have ignored both of them instead chose to laugh, to smile, and to join in the moment.

That’s life-giving. That’s what community looks like at its best.

If I’m honest, I’ve spent plenty of my life hiding parts of my personality because I feared rejection. I've had my life quieted by people who have thought my thoughts or my ideas or my insights are crazy and not, well - me.

Maybe you have too. But what if instead of hiding, we risked being seen? And what if instead of judging, we risked embracing what makes someone different?

Because when we accept, we bring life. When we reject, we bring death. And every day, with every interaction, we hold that choice in our hands.

This week reminded me: we all wear different hats. The more we see that as a good thing, the more beautiful life becomes.