Just for Men (and for the women who want to sneak a look). If you find it interesting, do leave a comment and pass it on.
Being a Man by Getting a Life
Some men find themselves living lives of “quiet desperation”, without really quite knowing how it happened. Little by little, imperceptibly, their masculine vitality has all but dried up. Some men discover that even the seemingly desirable cycle of acceptable work, leisure and pleasure, isn’t the “good life” they expected. It turns out to be very ordinary, and develops a growing ache of boredom – symptomatic of possibilities foregone by settling in and making do?
This isn’t to say that we are all suited to “riding the rapids”, but men are made for meaning, challenge and adventure – for a many layered life with one achievement revealing the path to another; each completion being a new point of revitalizing departure. It’s what men are and what men need. We are at our best when we are creating something, making things happen, making some sort of difference – exercising the dignity of causality. Men need a sense of purpose, and for what they do to matter.
Motivational speakers urge us to “follow our passion”. Easier said than done – especially if you don’t know what your passion is, or if it was “filed away” somewhere long ago. Often the best first step in recovering masculine vitality is to tune in to and turn up the volume of discontent – to hear it, acknowledge it, and explore it. It may then be possible to progress to the questions: “what is it that truly makes me come alive”? – and “how can I do more of that”? What we need most, and what others need most, is for us to come alive.
But “getting a life” as they say, isn’t without a price. To say “yes” to life, to be “alive”, means to grow and expand. It means always moving into the new. And what is new and unfamiliar is often uncomfortable. Move out of habit and routine and you’ll experience anxiety and fear. But if you can take courage and push beyond your comfort zone into the unnervingly new, the boundaries of your comfort zone will expand to match the new scope of your experience. In time anxiety and fear will give way to the satisfaction of meaning.
Having the courage to push the boundaries doesn’t mean pushing so far that you become depleted and overwhelmed. And legitimate passion and purpose can be hijacked by obsession. That’s why it’s useful sometimes to step back from a goal or project, to catch your breath and relax, and to observe whether you are the driver or being driven.
The Shamans of old always warned of those that could “steal your soul”. The stealth of mediocrity can certainly do that. Yet, as in Michael Ende’s Never-ending Story, the creeping power of the “Nothing” advances or retreats depending on the human will to dream, and hope, and pursue meaning.