Skip to main content

Blooming

Water has no effect on fake flowers.

The first time I heard that, it knocked the wind out of me. Because it explained years of frustration I couldn’t quite put into words. For so long, I thought the problem was me. Maybe I just wasn’t pouring in enough, enough patience, enough kindness, enough late night pep talks, enough second chances. If I just tried harder, showed up more, bent a little further, surely that relationship would bloom.


But you can water fake flowers all day long, and nothing changes. They’ll sit there looking perfect, maybe even fool you for a while, but they’ll never grow. They can’t.


That realization changed everything for me. Because real relationships whether personal or professional are alive. They respond. They may wilt if neglected, they may require effort, but when you give them care, they show signs of life. They grow with you. Fake ones just drain you.


So instead of beating myself up with the question Am I giving enough? I started asking a better question, Is this capable of growth?


And that one mind shift has freed me from pouring energy into things that were never going to change or grow.


Here’s where it really hit me, work.


I used to think if I just gave more time, clearer communication, extra patience, more encouragement, every professional relationship would eventually click. But some of them never did. Because some work relationships are fake flowers, too. They look polished. They sound promising. But no matter how much effort you invest, mentorship, collaboration, giving credit they don’t grow.


The difference is subtle but it matters. Real work relationships, even in tough seasons, show progress. You see trust building. Collaboration gets smoother. New ideas spark. There’s momentum. With the fake ones, it’s just…nothing. Static. Artificial.


And here’s the kicker you have to stop confusing difficult but alive with dead on arrival.

The difficult ones are worth watering. They will stretch you, challenge you, but they will grow. The fake ones take energy you will never get back.


So now I weigh the question Is this relationship capable of growth? If the answer is no, I stop watering. I turn toward the people and projects that are alive.


Because life is too short and work is too demanding to keep pouring into anything artificial people, relationships, or growth.


ღ Chi

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seen

There’s a weird kind of loneliness that comes from wanting to be seen while also praying nobody looks too closely. Wanting someone to notice the hurt, the exhaustion, the way you’ve been holding everything together with shaky hands and caffeine and pure survival instinct… but also being terrified that if they really saw you, they might decide you’re too much, too emotional, too broken, too needy, too human. So you perform. You crack jokes in meetings. You answer I’m good on autopilot. You keep producing. Keep leading. Keep showing up polished enough that nobody asks too many questions. But underneath all that is a quiet little voice whispering, please see me. Please notice I’m drowning before I convince myself this is normal. And the messed up part is… when somebody actually does notice? Panic. Immediate panic. Because being seen means being vulnerable. It means somebody could confirm the fears you’ve been fighting in your own head. It means they might see the cracks you worked overt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Resolutions

While everyone else is panic buying gym memberships and promising to become an entirely different person by February, I’m rolling into this new year exactly as I am. Unapologetically. Intentionally. And with zero interest in your vision board that implies my current self isn’t enough. I am not broken, so there is nothing to fix. There is this wild assumption that January 1st should trigger some metamorphosis, like we are all caterpillars who have been waiting for permission to become butterflies. But you are already the butterfly. You have been one all along and the only thing you need to shed is the belief that you are supposed to be someone else. I have spent years building the person I am. My habits, my boundaries, my non negotiables, the way I take my coffee, the way I handle my business, the relationships I have cultivated, the ones I have walked away from. That wasn’t accidental. And I am not demolishing it because a calendar flipped. This Year My time with family is sacred and n...
Post a Comment
Read more

Purpose Driven

We have something at my work called Pause for Purpose. At the beginning of meetings, we stop just for a moment and recognize something meaningful. Sometimes it’s a team that showed up during a natural disaster to help families get back on their feet. Sometimes it’s employees volunteering in the community. Sometimes it’s people doing extraordinary things when the world gets messy. And I love that we do that. I really do. Because in corporate spaces, we talk a lot about values. But when you pause the agenda to honor service, real human service, that tells people those words aren’t just printed in the company newsletter. They are practiced. This matters. Since I’ve become a leader, things have happened. My perspective has shifted. I’ve been exposed to the why behind the time off. I’ve spent more time listening to a bigger group than just my handful of usuals about their kids, their bad mornings, their big wins, their big losses. And something happened recently that shifted the way I think...
Post a Comment
Read more