I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

“I need a thing” he said to me “I’m in a rut and I need a thing.”  I offered a suggestion, but it was of no interest to him.  “Yea… You need a thing.” Was all I could say after that.  How many times have I been there? In that same seat, feeling the same way.  “Everything is going well for me, but I don’t have a thing. I go to work, I come home, I eat, I sleep. That’s all I do and I’m bored.” You are lying to me/yourself if you try to tell me you’ve never been here, and it likely isn’t the first or the last time.

This world we are in is full of things to do.  I would say at this moment we as a society have more things to do with our spare time and idle hands than ever before in history, but so many of us are wandering aimlessly outside of our duties to work and family.  It’s a hard thing to realize that you don’t have something to occupy your time. Something that grips your mental, emotional, and spiritual faculties.  In this world having a “thing” that can fulfil all three is vitally important not just to people in general, but men especially.  We need a purpose men. A higher calling. A challenge. That is something that every great man has recognized and striven for.

 

So what’s keeping us from striving to be better?  It took me 29 years to come to the conclusion that “if it doesn’t make me better than I was yesterday it’s not worth doing.” Why? There are so many things out there to do in my spare time, why doesn’t anything sound good or interesting. For starters, most of the time consuming things out there are not exactly beneficial for our minds, bodies, or souls. Social Media was the beginning of a new time wasting age. It can consume people. We have also seen the greatness that can be had when Social Media is used for something good like human rights revolutions. More often than not it’s used to see what celeb looks terrible in their bathing suit, and that is what most of us use it for.

I’m reading Hero Tales from American History written by Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge. 5 chapters in and it’s easy to tell you that the relating theme between each story is that the person they are talking about stays busy and outside.  They have an adventurous spirit and work tirelessly at what they are doing, which 200 years ago was basically farming, surveying the land, fighting in wars, and fighting Indians. All those things are very different time occupiers than what we have today. I don’t know what the men of the past would have done to waste time. I bet it involved gambling and drinking, or maybe sleeping, or rolling that wooden hoop down the street with a stick. I don’t know! One thing that is cross generational, that supersedes time, great men didn’t waste time or effort. Everything they did had purpose, even if it wasn’t clear at first, and especially if it wasn’t easy. This is a quote from the first chapter in an explanation of why they wrote this book.

Its purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal.

If you asked me “DH do you adhere to an ideal of stern and manly qualities?”  My first thought would be “that sounds exhausting.”  Wouldn’t that be great to say “yes” with confidence? We live in different times now, where all the land has been mapped, and there is no new frontier to conquer. The vast majority of us don’t have plots of land to till and farms to plant, and no Farmville doesn’t count.  We don’t face death behind every tree from beast or man. Our lives are remarkably easier than compared to 200 years ago. We have been given the gift of enormous amounts of free time.  

 

When I look back at the times where I was wishing for something to do, I realize i was really searching for something to define me, something that I could tell everyone about much like a Vegan or a Marathoner do. I can easily recognize now that I didn’t have an ideal. I didn’t have a lofty ideal as Teddy would say. Over the past few years I have learned that unless what I am doing has a point to it, then I am not going to be happy doing it. Now all I have to do is find the point or the ideal….  I know for a fact that’s why I wandered around doing and trying so many “things.” So if you are finding yourself wishing you had a thing to define you, an ideal to live by, you better start doing some introspection and figure out what you want to define you.  Nothing is just going to magically happen to you, you have to find an ideal, set  goals and start working towards it.

This is so easy to say and so difficult to do.  I have lived by many ideals and at times by none. I have found things that have caused great personal growth, and other things that have wasted years of my life. I have declared “This is my ideal!” And done nothing to support that.  Words without action are just that. Good intentions and nice feelings only go as far as the action that defines them.  So if you are reading this thinking “I have an ideal, but I don’t have a thing!” You have reached the time where you need to start setting goals. Start small with the one easy question to answer. “What can I do today to live by my ideal?”  Without that action, we are all just telling ourselves something that sounds nice to feel nice. It means nothing. It’s faith without works.

This goal or ideal that you choose can be anything you want it to be. My advice is to do everything, then narrow it down to what really interests you. I know plenty of people who have their “thing” be sports. Playing, watching, stats, following your favorite team etc etc. we all know what that looks like. I’m happy for them.  Don’t get me wrong I love my Colts and fantasy football. Ask my wife, we rearrange our whole week during the season. But if my goal is to live by an ideal and have my “thing” be something that achieves that goal, fantasy football and sports ain’t cuttin’ it.

Those things are great to know about, and they are entertaining and distracting. They provide plenty for me to talk to other guys about around the water cooler or a beer.  I really do enjoy lots of things that don’t line up with an ideal. Cigars, bourbon, football, fantasy football, March Madness the list of things I like goes on forever. These personal joys are extremely important for us to continue to enjoy life.  I also know that my interests change, and what I think of as entertaining now will likely change when the wind blows.. That’s why I’m glad none of these things are my “thing.” I’m not saying anything that doesn’t directly relate to a lofty ideal is bad. Infact, those things are very good. I just don’t want people to think that the Fantasy Football and March Madness define who I am.  

We all have a higher calling than what we think.  We are all born for greatness. Each one of us is born for sainthood.  It’s our job as men to open our ears to that call, to meditate on it in prayer, and to find the courage to follow it. We are called to something hard, because nothing easy was ever worth doing.  The easy path is easy because many walk it.  Don’t just be one of the many.  

Be the guy that can rattle off stats of all the college teams. Be the guy that plays video games all day. Be the guy that reads or the guy that writes. Be the gardener or the golfer or the pool player.  Shoot, do what I do and do all those things!.  But at some level be the better guy, the guy with an ideal, the one that focuses on self improvement of mind, body, and soul.  Do the things that will enrich you. You’ll find that a bit of self reflection and work will not only make you more fulfilled, but it will change your relationships.  The idea of the American Hero is no different than it was 200 years ago, the only thing that has changed is how we achieve that. Our frontier to conquer now is in the home.   Find your own path, just make sure that it’s a path that makes you a better man and a better husband. Answer the call for greatness.  The world is full of the entitled sloths who just want things to be better and aren’t willing to work to make them better.  Don’t be the average guy, we have enough of them.  

The evolution of man…

There is a popular sarcastic saying these days among those ~35 and under that goes something like “Adulting is hard.” If you know what I’m talking about you’ve seen the infinite number of memes out there on the subject.  My personal favorite is the grumpy cat version. “I tried being an adult once…. it was terrible.”  Being an adult is hard. I know I am not the only one that wakes ups and thinks “only 30 more years. Then I can retire and act like a 20 year old again.  

Now don’t get me wrong. There are so many more things I like about being an adult than I don’t. I live on my own/with my wife. I do whatever I want. I can enjoy a glass of bourbon and read a book. I play basketball with my friends. I am independent.  My biggest complaints are bills and waking up earlier than I’d like to. Those are hardly things to complain about. Up until I was about 23 I didn’t really have to think about any of those things. But here I am 29 married with a house and lots of bills that I can pay thanks to my job that I love.  That means that somewhere between 23 and 29 I had to really turn into an adult.  

So what makes being an adult so hard??  Honestly. What makes so many people say it’s hard to be an adult? Well when I graduated into the adult world the things that made it hard were living paycheck to paycheck under a pile of debt, for some a mountain, and finding a place to live.  But if that is the macro of finances and jobs and doing what it takes to stay alive, we can look at the micro. The day to day things that make it “hard.”

For me 90% of what makes my life hard in the minute by minute category is just making decisions.  When the alarm goes off I have a decision. Do I lay here for 20 min, or do I get up and get coffee and get going. Do I do the laundry now or hope I get inspired to do it later. Do I scrub this dish now or let it soak, because it’ll be easier after it’s been sitting in dirty soap water for 3 days. — it won’t be–  Really what becomes hard for us as we transition into being full fledged adults is learning to make decisions about everything. Mom and Dad aren’t here to tell us to pick up our clothes, and decide what we are having for dinner. They aren’t here to tell us that’s enough time on the computer and to go outside.

Every day I find myself choosing to do more and more “adult” things.  I choose to work on the house more instead of watch TV. I choose to read more instead of play video games. I choose to get dressed up and go out on a date instead of go to the bars until 3 am. Shoot, just this week I rushed home, put on some classical music and read a book. About  a half hour in I thought “I can’t believe I am this excited to be a 70 year old man.”  I think most everyone goes through these “growing up” phases in their own way. (some don’t go through it, and they tend to get left behind.)  We get older and our interests change. What makes us happy changes. We see the things we did as kids 5, 10, 20 years ago and those things no longer satisfy us. 

Our relationships work in the same way. At first it is fast paced, exciting, reckless even, young. It can be full of fun and challenges. You can’t sleep, you can’t work, all you can do is think about how much you love this woman. But that  immature Romeo and Juliet love fades. That “if I can’t have her I don’t know what I will do, but it will likely end with 7 people dead in a matter of 3 days,” type of love.It has to fade. Our souls, minds, and bodies crave something deeper. We all know the relationships the flame like Burning Man and then shortly after one or both people get bored and the relationship ends.

When the honeymoon phase calms down what does that look like?  Well boys, it looks like hard work.  This is the point where boys become men, and men become husbands.  At this point the invisible force of joy and excitement we call love has tempered down to a slight breeze and this is where “Love” needs to become intentional.  The great thing about this, is that there is now work, sweat, tears, and blood behind your words when you tell your wife you love her.  

Love is a tricky word.  We as a society pretty much love everything now.  I love pizza. I love food. I loved that movie. I love this song. I love these shoes. I love that actor/comedian/singer/celebrity that didn’t do anything to get famous.  This use of the word isn’t wrong, but it has no meat to it. It has no feeling behind it anymore. When was the last time you looked your wife in the eyes, studied them for a moment, and said with all the feeling of trust and heart and soul you can muster, “I love you.?”  DO it now! Go. I’ll wait. And when she asks what that was for, tell her she needed to know.  Wives, if you’re reading this nothing is stopping you from doing the same thing!

Right there you were faced with a choice. One of those hard adult choices. You either did or didn’t. You either chose to do just a little bit of work that would have been meaningful, or you chose to stay still and keep the status quo. My hope is that you made the meaningful choice. It’s an ideal choice. Little effort, maximum reward.

When Alle and I started dating we had that exciting whirlwind love.  I’d venture to say we still have it, but it’s more evolved. It’s intimate. It’s a knowing love.  It’s a sacrificial love. It truly is a love where we both focus on the good of the other.  That sounds so much more dramatic than it really is. It is a love that is fueled by little gestures and by speaking each others love language.

That’s why you need to figure out her love language.  This week I cracked Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages. If you haven’t picked it up and read it you should. It has great info in it.  Chapters 1-3 cover this same topic.  The maturation of a relationship.  He covers a small topic he calls “the love tank.” It is basically a metaphor for how loved your spouse feels. It’s a gas tank.  The only way to fill it up is by speaking your wife’s love language on a regular basis.  Guess what buttercup, you’re going to have to do some work here and figure out what her language is.  There are a few ways to do this, Google “love languages,” go buy the book, or most amazingly…… go ask your wife. Really. Go talk to her tonight and ask her what she needs to feel loved. I will continue to say this to my dying day, the more you talk to you wife about her needs, wants, and desires, no matter the topic, the healthier your relationship will be.

I was blessed to have married a woman that had already read this book, so when the topic came up about what I need to do to make sure she feels loved, she was able to rattle it off right away.  This was a key conversation for me and Alle, and thankfully, one that we regularly check in with each other on.  It took a while and some hurt feelings and some misunderstandings for us to get to a point where we can say freely “I need you to do this more,” or, “I feel really loved when you do/say this …”  

That’s hard work. Hard work for us both. I had to make the hard choice to initiate the hard work.  Alle made it clear from the beginning she was looking for a leader. A leader in the relationship, a leader in the home, a leader in conversations. That meant I had to lose a lot of pride and be willing to initiate hard conversations in a loving manner.  When I learned how to refocus my view of hard conversations from “I have to be right,” to “I have to find a truthful answer” they became much easier to have.  We argued less, we listened to each other and understood that feelings are feelings and they are justified to have, that doesn’t’ make anyone more right or more wrong.

On the flip side of this, Alle and I have an understanding that I often need to be the leader, but that doesn’t give her a reason to be passive about everything.  We both take ownership of our relationship.  In fact, since I have let go of that fear of initiating the hard things, it has built a trust between us that has allowed Alle to be able to initiate things that are hard whenever she needs to without fear of rejection or reproach.  Men if you lead by example and follow the golden rule when times get tough, you will be surprised that the outcome will more often than not be a good one.

This is how you go from being a child that your wife has to care for mentally, emotionally, physically, to a man. Once you figure out how to stop being a man sized child that needs his wife to do everything for him, you can now be a man sized man that does things for himself.  Once you master that you get to be a husband that takes care of his wife and family.  

But it all starts with one step, one choice to take action. That should be you saying “I love you,” and kissing your wife like you just said “I Do.” Everything after that is baby steps. But it is time to grow up and be a man and a husband and turn those baby steps into man steps.  If you want things to change, for you to be closer to your wife, for you to say and mean “my wife is my best friend,” it all starts here. Make the choices to go and make it happen, otherwise … what are you even doing here?