Room To Grow

It’s hard to believe that this year is almost over. To close out the year, I thought it would be fitting to theme this month’s newsletters around the place where it all started—home. For many of us, home is a complicated concept. It can be both a place of comfort and safety and a place of insecurity and danger. We all likely have some of the best memories and some of the worst memories of our lives tied to home. This month, I want to explore what home means and all the ways our sense of home—or the lack thereof—contributes to who we know ourselves to be.

I'm freshly back "home" in Pittsburgh from a quick trip to my first home—the place where I was born and raised. But, to be honest, Laurens, SC, has never truly felt like home to me. It is the place where my family lives and where I spent 18 years of my life, and in that sense, it is familiar and nostalgic. However, much of the time I spent in Laurens was marked by pains and traumas that I wouldn't begin to unpack and resolve until many years after I left. In my opinion, home is a place of peace, and though Laurens has come much closer to being a peaceful place in the present, my experience growing up there in the past was far from peaceful.

On one hand, my Granny's house is one of the most comforting places on Earth for me. The sights, the sounds, and the smells all act like a time machine, transporting me back to a simpler time when my biggest concerns were saving up enough money for the game I wanted or figuring out if the girl I liked liked me back. On the other hand, it’s a stifling place where only a small portion of myself is acceptable, shaped by the desires, beliefs, and expectations embedded in its foundation. A similar sentiment applies to Laurens as a whole. It's a small town in a small state, largely populated by small-minded people. "Small-minded" doesn’t at all mean "stupid"—instead, it refers to having a limited scope of understanding and experience, often stemming from not venturing much further than the place where you started.

I left home in South Carolina and don’t come back often—not because I don’t love and value my family, but because I crave room to grow. Whether they mean to or not, our families can be one of the biggest hindrances to growth because they are attached to an identity of us that they feel most comfortable with—a version of us that is often outdated, small, and limited to what they can digest and handle. It’s said that Jesus remarked, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” This is true because, in his or her hometown, a prophet will often be confined to the identity they had before realizing their calling in life. Consciously or subconsciously, our relatives and the people we grew up with may want to limit us to who we were before we stepped into our purpose, because accepting that we have evolved can be threatening to their own sense of self.

The idea of finality in life is always an illusion, which is why it amuses me to hear 20-somethings refer to themselves as “grown.” “Grown” is past tense and implies that all the growth necessary has been completed. This mindset keeps many people stagnant for years on end, with nothing changing in their lives except their appearance, job titles, or relationship status. Life is incredibly deep, but many people make the mistake of stopping their roots from growing down as soon as they feel large enough on the surface to look eye to eye with those around them. This approach works well if those surrounding you are like redwood trees that naturally grow over 300 feet tall. But it’s a tragedy if those surrounding you are like bonsai trees, which, despite their potential, are intentionally kept small—confined by their limited environment and the expectation to look a certain way.

But if we take that same bonsai tree and plant it in an environment that isn’t artificially limited—where its growth isn’t constantly pruned by the desires of others—it will grow to the full size its species allows, often reaching heights of up to 150 feet. Similarly, the place we call home plays an integral role in determining the amount of growth possible for us. Often, in order to reach our fullest potential, we must plant our roots in environments that provide plenty of room to grow and this often means replanting ourselves again and again until we find a space where our room to grow is unlimited.

You'll grow into it

When I was five or six, my mom, my older brother, and I took a trip to New York to visit my aunt and older cousin. My older cousin bought jerseys for my brother and me featuring some of the most popular basketball players of the time. My jersey was Allen Iverson’s, whom I loved, but since no kid-sized jerseys were available, he bought me the smallest adult size available instead. That didn’t stop me from trying to wear it. For years, it swallowed me and slipped off my tiny shoulders, but eventually, I grew into it, and it became one of my favorite articles of clothing. I still have and wear this jersey to this day, and I’ll likely hold onto it for the rest of my life because it’s the perfect reminder that the things we desire but aren’t yet ready for today might fit us perfectly in time—if we’re willing to keep growing.

I remember when I was little, anytime we went clothes shopping, we had to consider the fact that I was likely to grow more in the months to come. To avoid wasting money, my mother would usually buy clothes a size larger than what actually fit me. Luckily, baggy clothes were in style in the ’90s and early 2000s, so this wasn’t much of a fashion faux pas. While my mother primarily did this for economic reasons, I believe the wisdom behind her decision was sound and applying this same principle to other areas of our lives could create environments that better support continuous growth.

Unfortunately, leaving room to grow usually doesn’t look as appealing from the outside as having a “perfect” fit does. This is precisely why so many people are committed to fabricating images of themselves as having already arrived at the life of their dreams. What’s so off-putting about social media is that it can be manipulated to make our lives appear however we want them to look by sharing only the curated moments that create an illusion of full development. Meanwhile, in reality, we may still be quite immature on the inside.

How different would our experience of social media be if we all regularly and openly admitted that we are works in progress? How different would our experience of the world be if we didn’t place people on pedestals as examples of “making it,” but instead channeled that energy into creating ourselves? How different would our experience of life be if we didn’t think of success as a finish line we need to race across to prove our value, but instead saw success as simply being better than we were yesterday? How different would our experience of ourselves be if we let go of the illusion of perfection and instead embraced the growth and discovery that imperfection allows?

I can't believe I was once this small

When looking for someone to blame for Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 Presidential election, political pundits have been quick to call out “uneducated” Americans from rural parts of the country as the main culprits. I, too, have been guilty of blaming those I consider ignorant, along with their hateful attitudes, for the issues facing this country and the world at large. But I’ve come to understand that ignorance is not hateful or inherently malicious—it’s comfortable. It’s clinging to perceived safety. It’s being limited and delighting in that limitation. At its core, ignorance is a refusal to grow because staying the same feels far more comfortable than confronting the discomfort of change. In my opinion, the socially conservative values held by many of these “uneducated” people stem from a deeply rooted fear of change.

Education does not make one more intelligent. What education does is broaden one’s perspective and provide access to more information. Education creates room for growth. We can only become what we’ve beheld, so if a bonsai tree doesn’t know that a redwood tree exists, how could it ever aspire to be as tall as one? Education exposes us to the vastness of possibility, showing us that there is more to the world—and to ourselves—than we might have imagined. It doesn’t change our inherent capacity, but it stretches our vision, planting seeds of aspiration that might never have taken root otherwise. It empowers us to break free from the chains of the homes fate placed us into, allowing us to search for and create the homes we’re destined to build for ourselves.

It's also a mistake to perceive those without college degrees as "uneducated" because there are many highly educated fools. The greatest education any of us can receive comes from being students of life—a curriculum that is infinitely interesting and always has something to offer to those willing to learn. The rigidity of academia should serve as proof that formal education can be just as limiting to one’s development as never going to school in the first place and that the true gauge of one's education is not how many facts you can recall but how critically you can think, how open you are to experience, and how successfully you can adapt to the ever-changing process of life.

I still have the very first shirt I was ever given—a gift from the doctor who delivered me that says, "I was delivered by Dr. Dermer." Sometimes I hold it in the palm of my hand and think to myself, "I can’t believe I was once this small," while trying to fathom just how much has changed in the time between when I could fit into this shirt and now. Sometimes I reflect on how I used to see others, the world, and myself, and I think the exact same thing, marveling at how much I’ve grown since awakening to my own ignorance. Perhaps that’s why I’ve grown to empathize with the ignorant people from my hometown whom I once judged—because I was once as small-minded as I believed them to be.

The only real difference between the small-minded people in my hometown and myself now is that something within me always felt stifled by the limitations of the home I was assigned at birth. The search for room to grow has taken me on journeys both outwardly and, more importantly, inwardly, to find a space where my potential feels unlimited—a place where I can feel at home no matter where my physical body is located and a space where there is always more room to grow.

What's going on with me?

This recent trip back home for Thanksgiving was different from any trip I've ever taken back home as an adult in how, by the end of it, I didn't find myself wanting to rush back to my own space. I think this is because I've grown to be a lot more accepting of others but I think an even larger reason why is because my family has grown to be a lot more open, more patient, more kind, and more loving. And to be honest, I think my mother's death is responsible for this change. Death is such a hard thing to face because it takes away something we value so much but it's also a gift it we can allow it to be. And I think my mother's death made us all a lot softer, a lot more gentle, and a lot more aware of the preciousness of life and that we shouldn't take each other for granted or beef with each other over petty disputes.

During this trip home I found out that my mother had crocheted baby blankets and some outfits for her grandkids before she died. This discovery evoked a lot emotions within me, specifically because my mother didn't have any grandkids when she passed and she still doesn't and it touched me that before she left, she wanted to create a gift for the grandkids that might be. If you know me, you know that I'm fairly certain that kids are not in the cards for me in this lifetime. I'm not 100% sure I don't want kids, if I were, I'd get a vasectomy. And honestly, if it happened, I don't think it'd be life-ruining for me and that I'd probably grow to enjoy it eventually.

But I just enjoy my time and freedom so much and also don't feel the need to have kids for a sense of companionship, purpose, legacy, or continuity that having kids on purpose just doesn't make a lot of sense to me right now. Nonetheless, this discovery made me reflect on how death could not break the thread between my mother and me and on how there's an uncanny connection between my mom's passion for crocheting and my current position in life. I shared this reflection in the thread below and you can click the image to read the entire thing if you're interested!

Twice during my trip back home in Laurens, SC—once home to the only Ku Klux Klan museum in the world—I was offered kindness by elderly white women. White women who almost certainly voted for Trump and who almost certainly have conservative views. But despite their views, they offered me genuine kindness, not because they were being watched, not because they had anything to gain, not because they felt sorry for me but because they likely are genuinely kind people at heart. And I think this highlights the mistake we often make when ostracizing others just because they have different beliefs than we do.

All beliefs are dangerous, including yours and mine, because they are conclusions that don't allow room for growth or possibilities for expansion. So while I can admit that some conservative beliefs are inherently harmful to many types of people, there are also some liberal beliefs that are dangerous to many types of people and if we truly want to live in a more peaceful world, we all have to be willing to sacrifice our beliefs about the world and how our differences of belief divide us and focus more on the innumerable things that make us alike like enjoying when another human being shows us kindness unexpectedly.

I hope this week you are offered unexpected kindness as well.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜