This is another great guest post from Jared Trueheart of Legends Of Men. A site dedicated to masculine art and masculinity in general. Jared has written some great guest posts for the site and I’m glad to feature him again. In this article Jared talks about some of the harsh realities of masculinity that you have to accept. Enjoy.
Being a man today isn’t simple. Throughout human history being a man was never easy, but it was usually simple. Until the 21st-century men were recognized for their masculine qualities if they were adequate providers, protectors, builders, and leaders. That’s not so today.
Take, for example, businessmen. A century ago businessmen were “fat cats.” The fat part was literal. They were fat men in fat suits who made big deals and loads of money. We aspired to be them. Not so today. Even the richest men today need a certain amount of muscle mass to be recognized among men. Mark Zuckerberg may be a billionaire but he looks too boyish to be among men.
Displaying strength through musculature is only one added aspect of masculinity men today have to navigate. Here are three more unfortunate realities of modern manhood. Don’t whine or complain about them, just accept them and move on. You’ll be a better man for it.
Everyone Will Test Your Boundaries
Any man who has studied game knows that women will test men to see if they are truly alpha males. A woman wants to know if a man is genuinely an alpha or just faking it till he makes it. Can’t blame them. True alphas can act naturally to pass these tests. Women’s tests are only a portion of the tests men have to deal with today.
Your boss will test you to see how much work he can get out of you. He’ll test you to see if you’ll work after hours without being paid, work weekends and holidays, to come into work at his beck and call. Fail the tests (by working whenever he wants you to work) and you set a precedent. You’ll be expected to work when you don’t want to anymore.
In college, your professors will test your opinions. They’ll test to see if you read 100 pages of garbage in a night because it was in the syllabus.
Your wife will test you. Your kids will test you. Everyone in your family wants you to do for them what they could do for themselves.
The only people who won’t test you are men who can directly relate to you. Clear communication and maintaining your frame will pass these tests, but the tests will never stop. Accept them.
You Will Have To Hold Everyone Accountable For Their Responsibilities
One of the problems with life in the Army is that good workers often get overloaded with work. If person A avoids their responsibilities and person B is very reliable, the boss will give A’s duties to B just so that the duties will get fulfilled. This is a shortcut and a bad one at that because it gives incentives for not doing your duties.
Men have always held each other accountable when tasks were clearly defined, as they would be in simpler times. Even moderately complicated operations will have an ambiguity that hinders holding people accountable for their duties. Yet alpha males have to hold others accountable for fulfilling their roles. If they do not they will receive the blame for any failures simply because they had the ability to prevent them.
At work, men have to hold their peers and subordinates accountable. At home, they have to hold their wives and children accountable. If home life is rotten, if the house is filthy, if the family is unhappy, you as the leader of the family will be blamed. It’s not fair, accept it anyway.
You will have to hold everyone accountable for their responsibilities simply because you are capable of doing them too.
Nobody Needs You To Be A Man
This is not an original thought. Several scholars had already discussed this observation by 2016 when I released my research book on how to demonstrate manhood in a world that doesn’t need you to be a man.
Women don’t need you to provide for them anymore. They can work or the state will provide for them. Nobody needs your strength, machines can do the heavy lifting. We’ve outsourced masculinity to a select few; cops, firemen, underwater welders, and the military (< 1/2 the military by my estimation).
Nobody needs you to be a man but as soon as life gets challenging everyone will look to you to “man up.”
Society won’t prepare you for manhood. If you’re lucky you’ll be raised by a masculine father, but those are few and far between these days. If you weren’t so lucky you’ll have to learn from guys like Charles Sledge or myself. God forbid you to have to learn it the hard way, you might think being a man is the beta-soy version of manhood preached at universities.
It’s best to just accept modern life on its own terms. Society doesn’t need you to be a man but every aspect of your life will improve the more masculine you become. It is good to be strong and brave and skilled and determined. There are many benefits to being masculine, not the least of which is confidence.
Although these realities may be difficult to accept, do it anyway. Saying something isn’t fair is wasted breath. Complaining about realities you can’t change stresses your emotional stability. Free yourself by accepting unfortunate realities and you might just navigate them better.
You can read more from Jared at Legends of Men at legendsofmen.com
