I am a man who loves to dream. I have ventured through the thoughts of being a cowboy, a butler, and just floating in outer space for that matter. Thinking about all the places I want to go in life has been the heartbeat of what keeps me motivated as I drudge through the repetitive moments of dullness in my daily grind.
What Braveheart could teach men.
There are a lot of male figures that we can look up to on the big screen. For some, Sylvester Stallone in Rambo is the epitome of masculinity: tough takes shit from no one, and can carry the entire United States government if need be. Others love Liam Neeson in Taken. Outsmarting traffickers, problem-solving in the midst of major crises and general ass kicking in the name of saving the helpless is about as manly as it gets. But there is one figure that has always stuck out as an unbelievably epic male hero in cinematic history. His name is William Wallace.
Embracing The Life Of A Sitcom
I cannot count the number of times I have woken up wondering if I was in an alternate reality? I arose from a deep stupor the other day feeling like I was living out the very thing I had watched in my favorite comedic shows and began to wonder how I had ended up in such a surreal state. It became apparent to me that struggling to find my identity, seeking a significant other, and fumbling through my professional life were all similar symptoms to the classic sitcoms I had spent hours absorbing. Having an ex-contact me and want to get back together along with just recently dating someone who ghosted did not help this television like feeling.
Is Pop Culture Toxic For Masculinity?
Art and media have a deeply reflective attribute. They are able to mirror the attitudes and mindsets of a particular time, while simultaneously moving society towards certain ideas, solidifying stereotypes in our minds and changing the way we view the people around us. The sitcoms, TV ads and dramas of our day have shown the growing confusion surrounding the American man and where he finds himself. And we think of men differently as a result.
5 Ways To Practice Authenticity
If you are anything like me, you crave authenticity. I have spent my whole life with corporations, religions, and government parties attempting to manipulate and draw me into their paradigm so they could dictate me to be one of their faceless minions. They are all great at putting a smile on their faces and telling me what I want to hear. I despise this more than being a child who is being told to go to bed. I want to know the truth and I want myself and the people around me to be authentic. There is a classic Gandhi quote which I like to paraphrase, “Be the change you wish to see”. In response to Gandhi's wisdom, here is a short article with five steps I have taken to be more authentic and I hope you find them insightful.
Will you ever find the perfect job?
We have all seen those lists on the internet, claiming to hold the key to the 35 things that will lead you to true happiness. They include ideas like waking up early and traveling more, taking time to be present and doing yoga. One question comes to mind whenever I read those articles: how truly helpful are these lists and do they hold the key to what leads to a happy life?
Why I Burned My Childhood Dreams
I cannot count the amount of times in my life when I have heard the questions, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” “What are you going to do when you graduate from high school?” As a man in my late twenties I look back and I find these cute questions to be very limiting. They created an anxious expectation that there are decisions I must have figured out early on in life if I am going to be anyone of great significance. Then there is the factor that if one does know the answers to these looming questions early on in life, another set of anxious thoughts would mount up at the idea of not knowing where to even start the process. I can remember being in my early teens and setting internal goals that were completely unrealistic or just plain ridiculous. I find these inner covenants still tugging at the door of my heart. I thought I would share a few for an example: I need to be a millionaire by twenty-two, I need to be married by my mid-twenties, I must never go into debt… I formulated most of these dreams when I was a young teen. Do not misunderstand me, having dreams and aspirations can be a pivotal point for many people, but this does not mean every single internal vision we have for our lives is going to happen or even should. I found myself believing that any dream I had formulated and liked, I must do everything in my power to fulfil. Once the years started to pass and I realized this expectation was unrealistic, I discovered that I should most likely burn these old dreams to make room for new ones to be created in my more cognitive and realistic era of life.
Do Fathers Matter?
Of all the roles men fulfill in society, organizations, and within the family, there is none as vital as fathers. Families are a foundation, a rock bed that can either help you develop into the person you were meant to be, or tare you down, plaguing you with a lifetime of problems that take years to overcome. The world of academia and scholarship has had little to say about fathers for the majority of parental studies done over the years. Today, psychology is seeking to promote an idea that has spread throughout our society: mothers can do it all.
How often do you hear the word no?
There are multiple times in my life that the word no has been spouted very clearly to me.
No! You can’t have that Hot Wheels car. No! You can’t stay up late. No! You can’t have that diesel truck. No! You are not a good person for this job. No! I will not go out with you on a date.
This word is an ever-present reality in my day to day life. It has been a guiding factor in my pursuit of happiness and where I have ended up in life. I would never have gotten where I am today without that gloriously painful, two letter word. Needless to say, I still don't feel as though I have arrived. I am sure this verbal escort will continue to plague me with its presence.
What is the ultimate man?
There is a lot of talk these days about manhood, but few seem confident of what it is. There are hundreds of pages written about manhood on Amazon and half of them are christian….they seem to be the most confused of all, the most unsure. We’re all on a path to manhood, we’re all trying to figure it out. Some are further ahead than others, there are boyish parts that are yet to mature in us, and very manly parts of us that are glorious to behold.
The art of learning from life.
Growing up in the cornfields of southern Minnesota, my brother and I had plenty of time to venture out. We were active boys full of imagination with a decent size world as our stomping ground. In today’s culture, we would have been considered free range children. I spent most of my growing up years in a small town called Rapidan. It consisted of one intersection, two churches, and a bike trail that if you chose to ride its course through the country, five miles later you’d end up in a nearby city which possessed the name Mankato. My brother Judah and I would spend hours and hours going up and down this trail to a nearby train trestle which had been converted for the use of this public trail. Under this bridge, we would attempt to build small dams, catch animals, and carve our names and other things into the side of the sandstone cliffs lining the small riverside. I find that this time of being a boy who managed countless hours of manual labor all in the name of play and fun to be so profound. I learned skills that no classroom ever taught me. The mechanical process of overcoming the many problems we faced is something that has served me well as an electrician. We built small dams, forts, dropped huge rocks off the bridge, and the list of small enjoyable accomplishments just keeps going and going.
Why Veterans Go Back to War.
Tradition has demanded it. Many men have viewed it as the ultimate test of their manhood, others even as their rite of passage. When wars have to be fought, young men go to do it. Honor bound, duty bound, a sacrifice of love for those they hold dearest, or a chance to embark on a dangerous adventure. This is how men have, and in many cases still do view war.
I followed Jesus out of church and into the wilderness/real world.
I want to preface this article by stating two things. My sole intention is to encourage men to pursue their convictions, even in difficulty. I hope to do this by sharing a bit of my own journey. Second, I in no way believe I possess the answers to the massive and complicated situations I am about to mention.
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In the early 1990s some of my earliest memories as a child were within the confines of a traditional Evangelical Covenant Church and to be honest there are some pretty good memories. Playing with other kids, eating classic church potluck food, waging competitive war in ultimate frisbee, and getting my back scratched by my parents during the sermon. The only Sundays as a young dependent that I did not spend worshiping the Christian God seemed to be when on family vacation or puking my guts out at home. Needless to say, missing a Sunday church service was equal to or greater than the end of the world in my young mind. I went to Sunday school, did an AWANA program(kinda like boy-scouts), and was quite involved in youth group. I did it all!
Life continued at a steady, unwavering pace, as it does. I found myself and my journey with Christianity quickly moving out of that ever so comfortable central, Minnesotan bubble. When I graduated from high school I wanted to see for myself if this Bible was all it was talked up to be. Over the next five years I traveled across the U.S. residing in five different states, living out of my suitcase for very long periods of time, and serving under charismatic Christian ministries that were innovative for their time and the closest thing I could find to God tangibly interacting with the human race. I began to wonder about the journey I was on. I will openly admit that there were things that I cannot explain nor am I sure I ever will be able to. One could say I cannot deny God and I would agree with you. That is conversation for another time, however.
The personal pursuit I had for truth had set me up in the middle of nowhere, unsure of what I believed anymore. Traveling had its ups and downs that eventually landed me smack dab in the middle of the country. I landed in Kansas City, MO, working as an electrician, where I still currently call home and make my living. The employment of a normal career that was far outside of the religious world I was immersed in has released me to start diving deeper into books and allowing questions and thoughts to arise that were not morally acceptable in past organizations I had been affiliated with. I started questioning almost everything I believed off the basis of this one statement that had developed in my mind. "If I am afraid my beliefs will not stand up to questioning, then I do not believe they are true. Therefore, I should question everything I believe to find out what I believe is true." This led me to discover that many of the core values I had held in close to my heart were actually cultural assumptions that had no substantial legitimacy. Initially I was devastated. The projection of these principles into the atmosphere of the past organizations I loved and served in, led me to naturally accept them as true. These principles that had shaped my life were merely part of a culture and not an absolute truth.
In my pursuit of Jesus and truth I had come to find that the Christian Culture I had grown up in and associated myself with was simply nothing more than another social club cross-pollinated seamlessly with an ancient Judaic religion. I found that much of the ritualistic obligations that I had once felt so deeply to comply with were nothing more than fragments of a manipulative system trying to conform me into something which I did not even see present in the pages of scripture that was preached from their pulpit. This is where I find myself today.
I am telling you all this because I am on a journey to find truth and authentically live out what I believe. That is one of the many reasons why I started The Man Effect. I want to truly know what it means to be a man, in its most real and raw form. In my pursuit of the unknown, my pilgrimage has led where I did not anticipate, it’s not even on the same planet. You see, in the last five years a significant portion of what I held to be true has drastically changed, even though I was "seeking after" Jesus. My journey has led me away from the church and into a life which some would consider normal with the basic secular grind. I am wrestling with God and my belief of his existence.
So if you find yourself in a life where you are not sure what is true anymore, like I did, then I urge you DO NOT GIVE UP. Get uncomfortable, ask the hard questions, don't run away, don't numb yourself, and fight the good fight of life. I was thinking the other day about how slow a tree grows and the hundreds of good and bad seasons it will go through as it grows into the mighty structure that will eventually stand firm in the earth. I wonder if life is about figuring things out, or rather just existing in the wilderness and not giving up. If everything I once held to be good and true no longer is, then will I be okay? What if aliens do exist (hahahaha!)? What if our government is not out to get us? What if Jesus is not what I was taught? Will I survive the changing seasons or will I just shrivel up and die? I find it so important for myself to face these type of questions and trials. Would you join me on this journey?
I would love to hear your thoughts! Please take time to comment and share!!!!
Cheers,
Timothy
5 Steps To Be More Confident As A Man
Let’s be honest. Everyone under the sun could use a boost in confidence. Women find it attractive. Men crave it. The world in general would benefit if people would just take a little time to intentionally focus on becoming confident. As with anything, though, you need to figure out and decide for yourself what will work best. Here are some general ideas I have learned work best for me.
What did the 60’s teach us about manhood?
The 1960’s saw a major upheaval from the strict and rigid social codes and norms imposed by the 1950’s. America was in the post World War II generation and wanted nothing but a return to normalcy, and this was backed by a booming economy that brought the nation a standard of living the world had never before seen. Everything was black and white, roles were clearly defined, and people . America’s returning GI’s were the good guys who had won against a clear enemy. Men were expected to be providers, career men, fully engaged in the rat race of America while remaining upstanding citizens, fathers and husbands.
Masculinity isn't a product it's a lifestyle.
Inner healing seminars, masculinity conferences, and men’s retreats all claim to have some deeper answer to the masculinity crisis we see in our nation and other nations in the world. Lost youth, increasingly poor performance in school and jobs, loneliness, high suicide rates, and higher risks for addiction and violence have put men on the fronts of newspapers and made them the subject of a number of psychological studies. So these seminars, these conferences, these 48-hour programs seek to dive into the heart of the issue, and arm men for the journey into true manhood.
What ever happened to the Rite of Passage ritual?
Throughout much of history, spanning tribes, cultures and continents, the rite of passage from boyhood into manhood has signified the delineation for men. It marks a separation, a coming of age, a fulfillment of an important role within the greater community. Today, as we see persistent adolescence lasting until men are middle-aged, less and less men marrying and getting out of their parent's homes at the age of twenty-something, and increased gun violence perpetrated by male youth throughout the Western world, the question begs a revisit. Do boys need a rites of passage to help bring them into manhood?
7 Reasons Men Need To Play
All of us have this perception that play is for kids but what we don’t know is that it can be a great source of relaxation as well. Creative play leads to a more mature adulthood and healthy masculinity. Play is not trivial; it’s basic and as important as sleep or food for our health. Games and sports have for a long time been the foundation of civilizations and hence we can rightly say that play is a part of our lineage. Today our society tends to dismiss play as we grow from boys to men. The notion is that playing is unproductive and so we "Grow up" it’s time to be serious. Moreover, with our jobs and family, there’s no time to play. We all play as kids but as we grow up, we miss out on the essence of boyhood. Men need to play and they need to be boys again for so many reasons.
Insecurity the toothless lion.
Insecurities are like a toothless lion to me. I find that insecurity is a common infliction upon humanity. It is a subject that I personally have experience with and that if I were to regurgitate the countless encounters of failing to overcome and victory in the realm of insecurity, you would not want to read it nor do I have the time to write such a lengthy volume. I will share a couple short segments though.
Stop expecting men to be angry.
For the love of all that is good please stop expecting men to be angry. Media is plagued with the image of men who are only allowed to display this singular emotion. The very second men express something like sadness or tenderness they are instantly losing those oh so coveted masculine brownie points. Think of James Bond for example, how often do you seen him display emotions? This might seem direct and a bit narrow minded in thought, but this is a prevailing unspoken law. I have personally been around countless men who are held down by this silent litigation. They seem to react in one of two ways: a display of untamed anger or a flat-line of all their emotions. I want to focus on the former. I want to hone in on the fact that one of the few emotions men are granted to show is anger. Why is this okay? Why is anger acceptable but sadness not? Please do not misinterpret me. There is nothing wrong with anger, but if it is the only emotion allowed there is something dysfunctional brewing. Imagine telling a kid to go to school and graduate from years of education into a well, wholly-educated, scholar when he has only been equipped with the fundamentals of english literature. There are numerous other topics(emotions), that are valuable and necessary to cope with life on a daily basis. Men need emotions. Just like cars need gas, oil, and transmission fluid. If you were to try and drive a car with just gasoline and not the myriad of other fluids that it needs to properly function, you would fail. That is how I perceive men living life today. Men are trying to drive their cars(lives), with just gasoline. Not because they think it will work, but because that is all they have ever been taught. There are basic emotions every man should have on his tool belt: happiness, sadness, tenderness, anger, fear, excitement, just to list a few. I believe it is time for the world of men's emotions to be accepted. If a man cannot feel these basic feelings or, even worse, be allowed to, he truly cannot function at his fullest.