August 2021

The average human life lasts 650,000 hours. How will you spend yours?

*My friend Todd and I near his home in Washington state.*

I Love You, Man (Even Though I Can’t Say It)

After writing for The Washington Post Magazine about why straight guys struggle to tell their buddies “I love you,” I thought… there’s no way I'll read the comments. Comment sections are havens for trolls, and a story about men and love would surely attract idiotic hate from delusional "real men."

But my friend Todd was curious. Todd was the subject of the piece: For close to 20 years, Todd has told me “I love you” — and I've never said it back. He dove into the comments and found not only predictable examples of toxic masculinity, but surprisingly honest insights on fear, love, and emotional liberation. The same was true on Twitter, whether I heard from conservative men (the piece inspired an essay on the Christian site Mockingbird) or urban women (an editor with New York Times Opinion tweeted three times about the story).

Here are a few of the 200+ comments from the Post web page, which provide an interesting window into our personal and cultural views on masculinity (these have been edited for length):

“When I was in my 30’s, I heard my older brother tell our dad he loved him. I was taken aback. Dad was a good man but emotionally distant. I thought, ‘Hey, if he can say it so can I.’ So I started hugging my Dad and telling him I loved him. Then one day he said, ‘I love you too.’ That changed everything between us. Men who are unable to tell other men ‘I love you’ are wasting their life on a fairy tale of manhood.”
“I am a 70-something Irish man. For my entire life I have been terrified by the ‘L’ word. Using the phrase was a level of intimacy and trust I never knew as a child and couldn't fake as an adult. I am the oldest of seven. They all hug each other and say ‘I love you’ and I cringe and withdraw. I am a lesser person for having let these magnificent moments slip through my fingers.”
“In our culture, men aren’t supposed to show a full range of feelings. Furthermore, they’re taught at a young age to abhor all that is feminine, so the repression begins. Yet it’s much more serious than that: It creates hatred and a lack of respect for women.”
“When my dad dropped me off at college my first semester, I shied away from a goodbye kiss in the dorm lobby. I immediately saw the hurt in his eyes and vowed never to be embarrassed about saying ‘I love you’ or kissing my dad again. It is liberating indeed.”

My favorite comment came on Twitter. “Love comes in many forms and is expressed in many ways, but always, always wins,” a reader told me. “Most of you straight boys need to relax more.” —Ken Budd

See The World

*Leo, a Labrador Retriever mix, has traveled to 47 states. Scroll down for more Leo photos by his travel mate, Kristin Kluge.*

Leo has visited more states than I have — and he’s a dog. Check out expert advice on enjoying a safe and fun road trip with your dog in my story for AARP.

Whether you have two hours or two weeks, here’s how you can volunteer with your family as you travel in my latest piece for Travel + Leisure.

Plus: How to travel the world after you retire (Lindsay Tigar, Real Simple); why traveling can boost kids’ developmentand make them more empathetic (Alison Fox, Travel + Leisure); and why tourism “should not return to anything like its old, profligate normal” (Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times).

Live Your Best Life

*I shot this happy face in the village of Dagabo, Mali.*

Want to feel happy? Make someone else happy. That’s the finding of a recent study, which Jill Suttie wrote about for Greater Good Magazine.

In a study on screen time, people could choose to be alone in a room, without anything — such as their phones — or get an electric shock. Sixty-seven percent of men chose the shock (Marina Khidekel, Thrive Global).

Plus: After a heart attack, a British man’s vow on LinkedIn to work less and spend more time with family went viral (Maria Cramer, The New York Times); why creating joy can take practice (Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR); to be successful, follow your purpose, which also builds resilience (Jessica Stillman, Inc.).

Meet Amazing People

*Thanks to Jean Gribbon (right), sick children receive glass bead colors to represent moments in their journeys.*

Jean Gribbon and her org Beads of Courage help kids with cancer to tell their stories of pain and perseverance. I profiled Jean for my “Everyday Heroes” column in The Saturday Evening Post.

“By doing, you become.” A touching look at the too-short life of Kel Landis III, a North Carolina civic and business leader and author of The Little Book of Do! (John Drescher, The Assembly).

Plus: A blind woman is biking cross-country (Danielle Saitta, ABC-WTVQ, Lexington, KY); how three vaccine skeptics became supporters (a piece I wrote for VaccineVoices.org); Jane Goodall discusses hope: “If you don’t have hope, why bother?” (David Marchese, The New York Times Magazine).