Give People Their Flowers

I Like You

I make for a very poor secret admirer because, since committing to healing, I find it rather difficult to hold back the positive feelings I have towards another. But I've noticed that I'm a bit of an anomaly in this regard which prompted me to ponder on why that might be. I mean, I love giving compliments more than I love receiving them and that's because it does something to me to see people light up when they or their work is acknowledged. So, if we know that it makes other people feel good to be praised, why do we find it so hard to praise them?

Most of us find it much easier to express negative feelings and criticize than we do to express positive feelings and this is because expressing positive feelings requires a sort of vulnerability that expressing negative feelings doesn't. My theory as to why this is the case is that positive feelings pull while negative feelings push. Positive feelings pull in the sense that, when we express to someone that we like them or their work, whether we intend to or not, we are opening the door to a deeper connection because positive emotions are welcoming. On the contrary, expressing negative feelings typically pushes people further away because they evoke defensiveness, causing others to put their walls up to protect themselves from being hurt.

Typically speaking, we want to be closer to those we admire, and that’s the key reason why we find it so hard to express admiration—because it opens up the possibility for those we admire to reject us, likely triggering an insecurity that they are better than us and that we are unworthy of their friendship. While this is a valid fear, I honestly feel it’s a bit exaggerated. If we can learn to offer admiration unconditionally, then we no longer need to worry about whether the person we admire wants a deeper relationship with us. In fact, if our admiration isn’t unconditional, it’s a clear indication that it has ulterior motives, such as flattery or coercion.

This week, millions of people are reeling because Donald Trump obliterated Kamala Harris in the U.S. Presidential election, and this is because they fear that Trump's second term will be a replay of his first, instilling fear, division, terror, and confusion into the populace. And while I understand their concerns, I also feel like it's a bit of a cop-out. Humanity has a bad habit of always awaiting a savior to come through and make everything better for us all, and many people saw Kamala Harris as that person to be our savior. But the truth is, she wouldn't be—not because she isn't a capable leader but because no one person can save the world, as the world is the collective creation of billions of people.

So, any meaningful change in the world has to be made by all the people in it, not just one of them, and that's why it's each of our responsibility to work toward growing into better people each day so that we can influence our own pockets of the world to be better too. One of the ways I think we can make our pockets of the world better is by not keeping our admiration of each other such a secret. When we know we are valued, appreciated, respected, and admired, it makes us want to behave in more admirable ways. And while I admit that a bit of nuance is required, I think being kinder to one another, more appreciative of one another, and more open about our positive feelings toward one another would have a drastically more positive effect on the world than who is elected President.

Dear Ma

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I don't recall ever buying my mother flowers. I don't come from a very sentimental family. We're not the type to show each other much affection or speak positively or uplifting words to one another. Usually, the only time gifts were given was on Christmas, rarely on birthdays, and pretty much never for any other occasion. Telling each other "I love you" is a rather new development that I’d like to think was inspired by me after my mother died, when I realized just how easy it’d be for someone else I love to die without ever hearing that I love them. So, me never buying my mother flowers, while shameful, isn’t because I never appreciated her but because I didn’t really learn how to show appreciation until her time earthside was almost over.

Not only did I not learn to show appreciation until my mid-twenties, but I also didn’t learn to truly feel appreciation until around that same time. As kids, my mom would have to ask for help over and over again. She’d have to beg us to wash the dishes, take out the trash, clean our rooms, cut the grass, remember to take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost, etc., and more often than not, she’d end up doing these things herself after working 12-hour shifts taking highly stressful calls as a 911 dispatcher. As a kid, it was impossible for me to understand just how hard my mother worked and how taxing it was to have a job on top of caring for three kids. It wasn’t until life started kicking my ass as a childless, male, college-educated young adult—all privileges my mom didn’t have—that I began to realize just how much of a hard worker and a badass she had to be to show up for me and my brothers day in and day out without losing her mind. One of my biggest regrets, despite not knowing better, is not doing everything in my power to make her life easier as a child and young adult.

The capacity to appreciate is a skill that grows in congruence with facing and overcoming one’s own hardships. As a child, it was hard to empathize with what my mother was going through because I hadn’t experienced anything similar myself, so I had nothing to compare it to. It’s kind of like a man empathizing with a woman who’s having menstrual cramps; I can see that you’re in pain, but I could never truly know what that pain feels like, which limits the depth of my empathy. Similarly, as children, we can see that our parents are hurting, struggling, and in need of assistance, but because we’ve never been in the same position they’re in, it’s hard to ground their experience in reality in a way that would inspire us to take meaningful action to help them.

I'm 100% sure that my mother did not feel very appreciated for her sacrifices while she was alive, and though I do my best to acknowledge just how critical her sacrifices were to my success these days, I'm sure she would have loved to hear it from me while she was still in her body. Even now, I often feel bad for writing so much about how my mother hurt me because it paints a one-sided picture of her that doesn't begin to fully encapsulate the nuance of her or our relationship. But the fact that it was my mother's potential death that triggered such a radical, irreversible, positive change in me should hopefully validate just how important she was and is to me.

The fact that we’d grown apart in my young adult years was not because I didn’t love her or desire her presence or admiration, but rather because I often felt the opposite of admired by her—judged, rejected, and misunderstood. It took the threat of her death to show me just how much the little boy inside me still needed the approval, support, and, most importantly, the admiration of his mother. If we had both been more open about how much we admired each other and how much that admiration meant, we would have had a far more intimate, meaningful, and fulfilling relationship. But because of fear and ego, we wasted so much time that could have—and should have—been spent getting to know and enjoying each other.

Look, I get it—relationships with parental figures are hard, and it’s not always easy to appreciate or admire those who’ve often hurt us the most. I would never tell someone who has been abused by their parents in any way to discount that abuse and appreciate their parents despite it. But from personal experience, I can say that, despite what our egos may tell us, we all want to be loved by our parents. We all want to be seen by our parents. We all want to be admired by our parents. And our parents want to be loved, seen, and admired as well. Though it may be extremely hard to overcome the barriers that trauma and time have built between us and our parents, the truth is that our relationship with our parents is one of the most important and influential relationships we’ll have with anyone. And if there’s even a slight chance that this relationship can be restored, I think we owe it to ourselves, to our parents, and to the world to take it.

Dear Ma,

Thank you for bringing me into this world. Thank you for taking me out of it. Thank you for your feminine capacity to nurture and to care and thank you for your masculine capacity to protect and provide. Thank you for not becoming so overwhelmed with righteous resentment that even when I avoided home out of spite, you kept the doors open so I would have a home to return to. Thank you for often forgoing your own needs and desires so that I could get all of what I needed and much of what I wanted. Thank you for instilling your strength and resilience in me. Thank you for sacrificing your body, your mind, and ultimately your life so that my life and the lives of my brothers could be more full.

I honestly don't think I could have ever become a man had you not left your body because so much of my boy-ness was tied to my identity as your son. But your passing forced me to confront and ultimately transcend that boy-ness and learn to stand on my own. I'm deeply sorry that I did such a poor job of giving you your flowers while you could smell them but I know that you're still here with me now and I hope my commitment to being a positive influence in this world is a testament to just how big of an impact you have on me. All of this is both a manifestation of and an offering to you.

Men Like Flowers Too

I wholeheartedly understand the disdain women hold towards men—well, as much as a man could. The world we exist in today was largely designed by men to benefit men first and foremost, which means that women—their hopes, dreams, wants, and needs—are typically an afterthought. Not only that, but women are often seen as a means to an end in a man’s world—those ends being comfort, pleasure, children, status, and discounted labor. Women are expected to fit into roles that serve men’s interests, often without regard for their own autonomy or fulfillment. This systemic prioritization of men’s desires over women’s has led to deep-seated frustrations that go beyond individual relationships—it’s about centuries of feeling sidelined, objectified, and undervalued. This is why I think misandry—an internalized resentment or hatred for men—is just as common, if not more so, than misogyny.

The misandry that many women hold towards men and the competitiveness that many men hold towards each other mean that men are the least openly admired of the sexes. Think about it. How often do you see women gassin' each other up, complimenting each other, and uplifting each other? It’s practically a staple of female friendships. Women openly celebrate each other's successes, achievements, and beauty. But if I were to go into the comments of a post from one of my male acquaintances and say, "Damn bruh, you lookin' good as hell in that fit," I would immediately have my sexuality questioned and would likely make that man feel uncomfortable rather than admired, because a man admiring another man's appearance in that way is not socially acceptable.

I don't think women could ever understand the underlying competitiveness that's inherent in almost all male relationship dynamics, and that's exactly why it's so difficult for men to compliment each other. We fear that by complimenting another man or telling him we admire him, we are somehow conceding to him and admitting that he is better than us in some way. Showing admiration feels like a sign of vulnerability, as if we’re giving up ground in an unspoken hierarchy. For many men, even a simple compliment can feel like handing over an advantage, like losing face in some invisible contest. So instead, we often keep our respect and admiration to ourselves, quietly acknowledging another man’s strengths without ever voicing them.

This competitive undercurrent creates a barrier to forming deeper connections, because admiration is essential for real friendship and respect. Without it, we’re left with surface-level interactions that never allow us to truly appreciate or uplift one another. It also makes it impossible for a culture of admiration to be more widely accepted, so it remains taboo or, at best, reserved for our closest and most secure relationships. This perpetuates a culture of domination where empathetic men are left behind, while political “strongman” types like the President-elect are celebrated precisely because of their callousness and lack of empathy. In a roundabout way, the fact that men are not more open to sharing admiration with one another—and the fact that most women only admire the men in their lives they are closest to—helps contribute to a world where a Trump can easily come into power.

One of the most powerful pieces of advice I've ever received regarding maintaining a relationship is that when a problem arises, it's important to remember that it's you and your partner vs. the problem, not you and your partner vs. each other. It's clear to me that the current state of America, and the world at large, is a result of the fact that it’s not us vs. the problem—it’s us vs. each other. Democrats vs. Republicans, Conservatives vs. Liberals, Men vs. Women, Black vs. White, Gay vs. Straight, and so on, ad nauseam.

Instead of highlighting and celebrating the countless ways we’re the same, instead of acknowledging and appreciating the admirable contributions people from every demographic make, we instead separate, curse, and blame those who are not like us for all the problems we face. But the reality is, we are all much more alike than we are different, and what we all want is to be accepted, acknowledged, and celebrated for the unique contributions we bring to this world. In my opinion, the only way any lasting positive change can come worldwide is if we make our negativity toward one another more of a secret and our admiration for one another more obvious.

So, in the words of the artist formerly known as Kanye West,

“If you admire somebody you should go on 'head tell 'em. People never get the flowers while they can still smell 'em.”

What's Going On With Me?

My prediction was wrong, or a least half-way wrong. I did predict that the presidential race wouldn't be close but I honestly didn't at all predict that it would be a blowout in Trump's favor. Though, the more I think about it, the more this outcome makes sense and the more I think it's for the best. Had Kamala won, her administration would have likely been more of the same which would have been comfortable for many of us but I think that's exactly why she lost—because collectively, we want radical change. And Trump's win is going to radicalize a lot of people and make it clear to them that creating the world they want to live in is not a passive endeavor.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this development is going to bring a lot of suffering to a lot of people and that is unfortunate but in my experience, the most powerful evolution is always birthed from the most powerful pain. I think Trump winning gives us an opportunity to be honest with ourselves about where we are as a country and about the fact that many people don't feel supported by the government regardless of who's in power, so they see no incentive to vote or even care about politics.

I recently read a post on reddit by a Black man in North Carolina stating why he didn't vote which I'll link if you want to read the whole thing but I'll list out his reasons here:

1. Life in poor back communities is remarkably consistent (meaning regardless to who's in power, not much changes)
2. The Democratic party does not care about [black people], they just want our votes
3. Local Democrats have been 'playing in our faces'
4. Lots of black people are socially conservative (this is especially true in the south)
5. Down here Black men's lives don't matter
6. We do not like how Democrats represent us in all forms of media

I agree with all of these points and reading the post took me back to my upbringing in South Carolina where politics was never a major concern because it simply had no impact on our day to day lives—we were going to struggle regardless. And therein lies the disconnect between our political system and the people it's supposed to represent. I was once a 'have-not' who had very similar beliefs to the man who wrote this post. By the grace of God, I no longer identify with being a 'have-not' and have been removed from that lifestyle for so long that I barely remember how it feels and the same can be said for any politician. It doesn't matter how humble their upbringing was, once you're out of poverty for long enough, you can no longer identify with poverty politics and that's why I think it's impossible for a successful politician to represent the interests of those of a lesser socio-economic status.

So, where do we go from here? I have no idea. But I'm not going to worry about it. I don't have faith in Trump or the government but I do have faith in a greater power than my own understanding and I find comfort in knowing that what's happening is what has to happen for the highest good of all, even if I don't yet understand why.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜