Where Do All the Good Men Go?
A story from my driveway
I used to sit in the car for a long time before going inside.
Not every day. Just the ones when the meetings ran too long, or the silence in the house felt louder than I was ready for. The engine would be off. The porch light would blink on, motion-activated like it had a memory of me. The house would be still. And I would sit in the driveway, hand on the wheel, breath held just a little longer than it needed to be.
Not hiding. Just delaying.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go in. My family was inside. My children, my wonderful wife, my life. But I didn’t know how to arrive as myself. I only knew how to arrive as who they expected. Who I expected. The calm one. The fixer. The man who walks in with a smile even when his ribs feel like glass.
It became a quiet ritual. One I never named.
Until it started feeling like my real life was inside the car, and everything beyond it was a performance I didn’t rehearse for.
My father never sat in a driveway.
He didn’t have the luxury. He worked for the Indian Railways—an engineer, a senior technocrat who rose through hard work and earned every ounce of what little respect the system gave him. He was brilliant. Unfailingly honest. Helpful to a fault. The kind of man who believed that if you did good work, someone would notice.
They didn’t always.
He was overlooked, sidelined, and made to answer for things he never caused. But he never said a word to us about it. He carried the weight like it was his to bear alone. He came home each evening, washed his face, hung his suit jacket, and joined us at the table with kindness in his voice and weariness in his eyes.
That’s the legacy I inherited. A blueprint of quiet sacrifice. Of being good. Of staying soft while the world tries to sharpen you.
I didn’t see it then. But now I think he lived a good portion of his life in a kind of invisible mourning, grieving the parts of himself he never got to use.
And without knowing, I began doing the same.
I built a career. I raised a family. I led teams, made decisions, and carried the burdens people handed to me with the quiet efficiency I believed was love. I didn’t know what else to do. I thought showing up was the whole job.
But slowly, I began to notice the distance between who I was and who I had become. I was surrounded by people, but more alone than I cared to admit. I was making a difference at work, but couldn’t remember the last time I laughed without calculating how it landed. I answered every “How are you?” with “Good. You?” because anything deeper felt like overstepping some invisible rule.
I began to dread the version of me that only existed in the service of everyone else.
I told myself this was a strength. But it was erosion.
The change didn’t come all at once.
There was no dramatic breakdown, no lightning bolt of clarity. Just small cracks forming in the silence. A comment from a friend, “You’ve seemed far away lately.”
A conversation with my son, where he asked if I was mad at him because I’d been so quiet. I wasn’t mad. I just didn’t know how to be fully there without retreating first.
One night, sitting in the driveway, I finally asked myself a question I’d spent years avoiding:
What if I walked in as I was - tired, uncertain, imperfect - and let them see that man?
And what if that was enough?
It was awkward at first. Letting myself be visible in my uncertainty. Saying “I’m not sure” in a room that had always counted on my answers. Telling my wife I needed a moment, not because I was shutting down, but because I was trying to stay open. Saying no. Saying yes to rest. Asking for help - not in crisis, but in daily, human ways.
It felt unnatural. Vulnerability always does at first.
But something happened.
The house didn’t collapse.
The world didn’t scold me.
The people who loved me didn’t walk away.
They leaned in.
They softened.
They trusted me more, not less. For showing up whole.
And I stopped needing the driveway so much.
That isn’t to say I don’t pause there still. I do. The habit is slow to fade. And some evenings, I still sit in the car, engine cooling, grocery bag on the passenger seat, watching the porch light flicker like it’s waiting for me to come home.
But now, the pause is different. Not avoidance. Not performance prep. Just… breath. A moment to check in with myself before checking in with everyone else. No longer to compose a mask, but to return as the man I am becoming.
Because I am still learning how to be a man in a world that asks us to be so many things, we forget our names.
A man who leads, but also listens.
Who stays steady, but not silent.
Who carries others, but no longer at the expense of himself.
A man who remembers his father’s grace—but also chooses his own voice.
A man who knows that being strong isn’t about having no needs.
It’s about honoring them.
To the men still sitting in the car, unsure when to open the door - I see you. I’ve been you.
You don’t have to walk in with answers.
You don’t have to smile when you’re hurting.
You don’t have to hold it all until it hardens.
You can come inside as you are.
Tired. Hopeful. Incomplete.
And still worthy of the space you take up.
That’s what I’m learning. Slowly. Tenderly. Daily.
That the people who love me never asked for a perfect man.
They asked for me.
And now, when I step out of the car and walk toward the house, I don’t leave myself behind.
I bring him in with me.
I am so grateful you are here. Have a wonderful rest of your Sunday.
Warm regards,
Adi