This post will probably seem somewhat off topic for my regular readers, but I feel like I need to talk about this somewhere. In the past week I read The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida, watched the movie Fight Club and also watched Gladiator last night. I’ve learned a lot about what it means to live life your own way, and what it takes to be a man from all three of these sources. If you’re 45 years old, successful and as happy as can be, a lot of this won’t be news to you. But if you’re younger and you still feel like you’re lost and looking for something else in your life, then I think a lot of this will help.
Many guys today feel like they are at odds with their life, their job and their relationships. This is becoming more and more common with men today, and it appears as if this problem is only going to get worse. While much of this problem can be attributed to us, the real truth is that we live in the most demasculated society ever. 90% of media in the world today is targeted towards women. Men are continually being forced to live in a feminine world, and as a result both species are suffering. Just look at the sexual frustrations most women complain about today…look at the divorce rates in the world. We’ve migrated from polar opposites (very masculine guys, very feminine girls) to some point in the middle where we’re all becoming neutral. This isn’t the way human beings were designed to live.
In western societies men are no longer allowed to be men. Our primal instincts of being hunters, protectors and lovers are being taken away from us. Instead of being out in the wild and hunting for food for our family, men are suddenly being forced into salons for pedicures and to have their eyebrows waxed. Our DNA is not programmed to act like this, so each and every day we are basically having a war with our instincts. The problem however isn’t the pedicures and the waxings. Some guys like that stuff….and if you like to do that kind of stuff, by all means go ahead and do it. The problem lies within the fact that most men are engaging in more activities that they want no part of. They are straying far from their purpose and their beliefs only to please their wives, girlfriends and society.
David Deida has a great quote in his book, which says “Never change your mind, just to please a woman”. Now before you think I’m some kind of chauvinistic pig, let me explain what he means. If your woman suggests something that changes your perspective on a situation, then by all means you should re-evaluate the situation and make a new decision based on your new perspective. However, as a man you should never betray your own intuition and instincts in order to make your woman happy or to go along with her. When you do this, you are weakening your relationship by basically saying “I don’t trust my own knowledge”. And when you don’t trust yourself, your woman will start to lose trust in you as well and this is where the downward spiral of your life begins. I’m sure we all know guys who are like this. In an instant they’ll drop everything in their life to make the woman in their life happy. Women may stay with a guy like this, but she will never truly respect him. Think of Maximus in Gladiator. Maximus loved his wife and son more than anything in the world…but they were not his ultimate purpose in life. His ultimate purpose was to fight for Rome and to restore it to the great place that it once was. Could you imagine Maximus leaving the battlefield to go home and tend to his wife? Nope. You must figure out your ultimate purpose in life and commit to achieving that purpose.
If you’ve ever seen Fight Club, there’s a few great scenes where Brad Pitt really explains what its like to be a guy growing up in this generation.
Unlike our fathers and grandfathers who had a purpose or a path laid out for them, our generation has none of that. We’re in an age of constant confusion and expanding technology. We’re fighting to still be men in a unisex world.
We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.
When I first heard this line, it utterly dropped me. This is the situation that many guys from my generation are in. We are being raised in single parent homes by a mother, and if the father is present, he’s usually the beta male type father. In homes like this the mother runs the house. She makes the rules, she makes the decisions, she tells the husband what to pick up at the grocery store. This is why so many Generation Y males lack a sense of purpose and don’t understand what it means to be a man.
Ultimately you have to find your purpose in life and stick to it. Stick up for your morals and ideals and don’t stray due to pressure from women or society. Be the man you know you can be. Go workout, play sports, protect your loved ones, push your boundaries, try something new and daring, devote yourself to a higher power… something bigger than just you.
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Amen… “straying from their purpose to please their wives, girlfriends, and society.” There is more to it than hot girls, clubs, and material things.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.
I watch Fight Club probably four or five times a year, just to remember things like what you wrote here. Great post, and I hope many more read it.
Like you mentioned, its not chauvinistic or anything like that. Its NATURAL.
Id like to see your DNA evidence.
Justin,
This was a really great post. It really hit home for me. I am a 27 year-old, married guy, living in NYC. Everything you said was right on. In my case, I just want to work and make money and my wife wants more attention from me and for me to be around more. The balance is really hard. Sometimes (a lot of the time actually), I give in to my wife just to make her happy and I give up what I really want or succumb to the pressure and lose the opportunity to go after what I really believe in. So thanks for this post because it made me think and more importantly, to stick to my morals and ideals and not be strayed due to pressure and to “be the man I know I can be.”
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