A father of two and teacher for 14 years feels compelled to share the 12 life lessons with his sons on how to become a “Good Man”.
—
Fatherhood is something I’ve looked forward to most of my life. However, the emotion that accompanies it and the amount of tugging on my heartstrings is beyond what I could have ever anticipated. Nothing gets my goat more than deciding what’s most important to teach my boys in order for them to be happy and successful.
To become a man, there are many things you must know and do…
- Fully understand that there will never be another you.
You are an once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated expression of God. That means God made you to be exactly who you are. You get new ideas in your mind and fresh feelings in your heart each new day, and everything about you is just the way God intended. Even the things about you that you do not like, or the things about you that you think are weird. God wanted those to be a part of you too, because they make you exactly who you are destined to be. Be you, and know that by doing so, you are fulfilling God’s plan for your life.
Keep this in mind and it will help you to realize and remember your value and importance, your significance. If you don’t go out into the world and be the person your heart and mind (and God) are telling you to be, then there will never be another one of you. You’d be a wasted opportunity for something extremely special. Secondly, remember this when thinking about others. EACH person is an once-in-a-lifetime expression of God, our creator. So when someone else does something you just can’t understand, remember that they’re just being the person that God created them to be. They’re doing what they think is best with the consciousness they currently maintain. Maybe that’s hard to accept when someone’s doing something that seems really dumb. But perhaps they are learning a lesson the hard way by experiencing how not to handle a situation.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
- Think before you act.
With every decision that you make, think about what’s right and what’s wrong. Strive to be the best person that you can, and remember to treat others how you want to be treated. Working hard at this every day is a sign of a good man. It will give you an ability to look others in the eye confidently, knowing that you deserve respect from them. In addition, you can look at the man in the mirror and feel proud of who you are.
- Forgive yourself for mistakes.
This is a very important one to remember, because too many people don’t do this, and it really holds them back. People often beat themselves up for messing up, constantly thinking about their mistake and repeatedly making themselves feel horrible for what they’ve done. Don’t do that. When you make a mistake, admit it and accept it. But remember that everyone makes mistakes, and you were doing the best your present awareness at the time was allowing you to do. The thing that helps me with this is remembering to…
- Treat yourself like you would treat your friend.
Think about a friend you have. Imagine they made the same mistake as you. Would you, as their friend, remind them time and time again about the mistake they made? Would you constantly bring it up, trying to make them relive the feeling of regret that followed? Of course you wouldn’t. Then why are we so quick to do this to ourselves? Instead, treat yourself like you would treat that friend after making a mistake. Acknowledge the mistake, and be accountable for it. But then officially forgive yourself for it. You may need to say it in your head, or possibly even out loud. If you don’t stop feeling bad about it, you may need to repeat it to yourself over and over again until it sticks inside you. But if you want to feel confident and proud of who you are, you’ve got go out of your way to tell yourself that what happened was okay. Even if it’s a big mistake, the truth is this: you’re a good person, and you were doing the best you could. Mistakes are okay. Learn from the mistake, but do not dwell on it. And certainly don’t damage your self-esteem by repeatedly beating yourself up over it. Let it go.
- Have enough courage to be honest and tell the truth, even when it’s hard.
This is another huge one. A real man is brave enough to tell the truth, even when it’s really hard to do so. Even when you’ve messed up, hurt someone’s feelings, or done something wrong, own up to it. Resist the temptation of lying, for telling lies is the act of a coward. With every lie you tell, you’re telling yourself on the inside that you are too scared to admit the truth. It affects how you feel about yourself. If you consistently tell the truth, you can walk around each day with your head held high. You can look others in the eye, knowing that when they look at you, they’re looking at a man of integrity. A liar can tell himself, “I can lie all the time and still look people in the eye and be confident.” But it isn’t true. Every time you’re dishonest, it eats away at your self-esteem. Also, it begins to affect how much you trust other people. The more you lie, the more you start suspecting that others are lying to you. Paranoia begins to poison your mind as your guilty conscience goes to work. You feel bad for not shooting straight with others, and you start to question whether you can trust even the people who are closest to you. This is a big deal, something you really don’t want to mess with. To be truly at peace in your life, you need to be honest in everything you do, admit it when you make a mistake, and trust others to do the same. When others do not, however, remember to…
- Be gentle with other people.
When you mess up, do you like it when somebody else gets angry with you and yells at you? Probably not. So don’t do that to other people. Or at least do your best not to. Sometimes we lose our cool, let anger get the best of us, and say or do something we regret. It happens to even the best of people. But do your absolute best to limit the times that happens. If you can master your anger, instead of letting it master you, this is an awesome thing. This is a good segway into a related matter…
- Don’t displace your anger.
If you’re angry about something, accept it. Let yourself feel it. Anger is a human emotion, everyone feels it. So it’s okay to be angry. However, it’s not okay to act mean and do & say mean things just because you’re angry. It’s extremely tempting to take your anger out on other people, or even on your pets. The master of his anger, however, recognizes it when it arrives. He accepts it, but then he has a decision to make: is this worth continuing to be angry about? A wise man once told me, “Nobody can make you angry but yourself.” I disagreed with this idea at first, because people sometimes do things that I really don’t care for. In fact, there are times when some people may even be trying to make us angry and push our buttons. Nevertheless, as I considered what he had said over a period of time, I realized that he was right. We always have a decision about whether we need to get mad or not. At first, it may feel like another person has done something that we don’t like. But after giving it just a bit of thought, we can choose to be mad, or to let it go. And in many cases, if we think about what happened, and consider what we could have done differently, we can choose to let it go.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeIf you’re considering a mistake by another and whether or not you wish to stay angry about it, it’s important to put yourself in their shoes for just a moment. When someone makes a dangerous mistake while driving in a car next to mine, the first feeling I often experience is fear for my family’s safety, and that can quickly turn into anger toward that driver. But when I’m in my right mind, I see that fear, followed by the anger, and I know exactly what’s going on. The fear caused the anger, and if I let it consume me, I could decide to yell at the other driver, or show them my displeasure. The wise man, who is slow to anger, reacts by thinking, “Okay, so that driver just turned right in front of me, cutting me off, without using a turn signal….have I ever done something like that?” Often times when I think about it, I’ve made a mistake at some point in my life that was very similar to the one I’m currently getting all bent out of shape about. When I make a mistake, do I appreciate it when somebody else gets all upset with me and lets me have it? No, I prefer when someone gives me some grace and tells me that it’s okay, because everybody makes mistakes. So I typically decide that it’s not worth it to stay angry about. It feels good to not let something such as this control me, and I feel happier when I’m not angry. Plus, a wise man quickly realizes that…
- We often do dumb things when we’re angry.
Many times we regret these dumb things later on, if we’re not careful, that is. Science has proven that when we’re angry, our breathing slows down and less oxygen flows to our brain. When we have less oxygen getting to our brain, we can’t think very well. This made all kinds of sense to me when I learned it (and still does), because I’ve personally lost my temper and said or done mean things that I later wished I hadn’t. In addition, I’ve witnessed the kids I work with do the same thing countless times. So here’s where you’ve got to train yourself. You get angry, you get all fired up, and you think about jumping all over someone who gets in your way. It’s very tempting too, because anger can trick you into feeling powerful, and as the oxygen slows to the brain, your adrenaline starts pumping as you get angrier.
Some people get fooled by this fired-up feeling, and they think it’s making them feel powerful. Little do they know how powerLESS they are over that anger. Real power includes the ability to recognize anger, identify its possible source, and then make a decision about whether or not you need to stay angry. And dag nabbit, sometimes you do. Sometimes you’re going to be angry, and you need to be. God wouldn’t have made the emotion of anger had there not been some use for it. However, it is important to severely limit the amount of times you choose real anger. If you want to limit the amount of times you do dumb things you’ll later regret, you need to put a tap on how often you get really angry. As for me, I really don’t like it when I do stupid things, so it just makes sense to me to get a real handle on controlling my anger.
- Make others feel comfortable around you by being vulnerable enough to admit it when you make a mistake.
Since we all make mistakes, we all have a choice whenever that happens. We can choose to blame the mistake on others, make excuses, or lie and say that we didn’t do it. All of those methods are cowardly. A brave boy or man tells it like it is, and has the courage to admit it when they mess up. If you never admit your faults (and I’ve been around people like this), and you go out of your way to act like you never make mistakes, people begin to feel uncomfortable around you. If you act like you’re too scared to admit it when you mess up, then others don’t feel like it’s okay for them to mess up around you. A good friend comes clean when they mess up, they take the blame when it’s appropriate, and they resist pointing the finger at others. When frustrating situations arise, if we get in the habit of always asking ourselves what WE could have done differently to make things better, we learn from our mistakes. That helps us grow and get smarter. Blaming others and making excuses doesn’t get us anywhere. Remember to always point the finger at yourself, saying, “What can I do to help a similar matter next time?” If the mistake you make is one that hurts someone, a real man realizes that he needs to say sorry.
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
- Be brave enough to apologize.
Apologies don’t make the mistake you made go away, and they don’t automatically heal the wound when you’ve hurt another. But if you want that wound to begin to heal over time, you need to offer a genuine apology to start that process. The person you’re apologizing to may not be ready to accept your apology, but offer it anyway. Even if they mock your apology and deem it as insignificant, give the apology. However, it is important to remember that an apology is, in a way, a promise (if it’s genuine). If you feel bad enough about something that you feel the need to apologize, say sorry. But if you were to repeat the same behavior you apologized for a couple of weeks later, were you truly being sincere in your apology? Prerequisites for your mind before offering an apology need to be: acceptance of what you’ve done, acknowledging that it was not okay, having a plan of forgiving yourself for the mistake (#3), and deciding to commit to not repeating the behavior. After all, how frustrating is it when someone says sorry for something only to repeat the same mistake again and again?
- Know that there’s a time for a man to lead, and a time to follow.
Some guys get caught up trying to be so macho that they feel like they have got to be the shot-caller, the alpha male, the big shot all the time. A real man can take charge when it’s time, but also recognize it when it’s someone else’s time to shine. If you’re the expert in a situation, and you’ve got the most experience compared to others, then that’s an opportunity for you to be a leader. But if you’re solving a problem with others and you realize there’s another person more qualified to lead, let them. If you try to outdo others and act like you’re the man even when you ain’t the man, it’ll be evident to everyone else anyway. Plus, if others don’t get the chance to be themselves and share their gifts and talents in your presence, they probably won’t want to be around you for long. If you can help the people around you to use their gifts and feel significant, they will enjoy being with you because they know you recognize their worth.
- Be resilient.
Things won’t always go your way. In fact, there will be times when nothing seems to be going the way you want. KEEP ON TRUCKIN’. Even when it feels like it’ll never get better, remind yourself that it’s only temporary. Remember that going through tough things makes YOU tougher. “A calm sea does not a strong sailor make.” When you are faced with a great deal of challenges, remember that God wants to test you more than some because you’re destined to be stronger than average.
Life is about balance. And if every day was perfect, if only good things happened to us, we would not truly appreciate the value and feeling of happiness. It’s because we’ve had horrible days that we can truly feel the magnitude of a wonderful day. It’s because we experience failure that we embrace the awesomeness of success. Only when we’ve experienced the feeling of rejection can we truly understand the sweet feel of acceptance.
So enjoy the good. Endure the bad. But remember that the good wouldn’t be nearly as good without having the bad.
Photo: Flickr/Jayne Booton
great stuff. Thanks very much I have Printed the article for my boys aged 5, 7 and 8. to read
Lovely and thank you. I will ponder your article and apply it in my life.
Thank you Tom!
Great article Nate, I agree with everything you said.