Buy yourself the "flowers"

A few weeks ago at clinical, one of my friends mentioned that she had taken to buying herself at flowers every week. At first, the very concept puzzled me. “Why?” I reflexively asked with wide eyes– genuinely confused. “Because, why not? I deserve it and I think they’re pretty” she responded– probably equally confused by my reaction. “Why not”– what a profound statement. It dawned on me, she was right.

That night on my way home from clinical I stopped at Trader Joes and got myself a $6 bundle of flowers. And it totally made my week! Everytime I got home I had flowers on the table and it was probably one of the happiest $6 I’d ever spent. It made me really think– why not buy yourself the flowers?

Now, every Sunday I go to Trader Joes and pick myself out a new $6 bundle for the week. It’s actually one of my favorite parts of the weekend now. A few weeks later, another friend of mine posted flowers on her story and (here comes my bias again) I slid up and asked who got them for her. “I bought them for myself! I deserve them” she responded! It made me so happy– because yes, she did. And I think that we, collectively as women in society, need to stop waiting for other people to realize our worth and start buying us flowers when we probably have the resources to buy our own.

Clearly I had ridiculous pre-existing notions about where I could get flowers– and clearly I had never considered myself on that list. The entire experience made me realize that I needed to start buying myself those flowers– both literally and figuratively. Because while I may not always have someone else to buy me flowers every week, there’s nothing stopping me from getting my own. And when you can do this for yourself, the bar becomes a lot higher for what kind of energy you're letting into your life.

So I will continue to buy myself the flowers, and I hope that you consider it too. Maybe your “flowers” aren’t actually flowers, but something else. Either way, don’t wait for someone else to realize you deserve them.