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Men, you don’t have to be what anybody tells you to be. Society constantly pushes a provider and sacrificial role on men. Men are constantly pressured by friends and family to get married, have kids, and provide for them both. Of course, if you have kids, it’s absolutely necessary to provide for them. However, how many men realize they don’t have to get married or have kids in the first place? How many men force themselves into relationships because it’s the role that society pushes on them? All of these questions lead up to a question with a potentially devastating answer: How many men and are not happy with their life?
It’s not my job to answer these questions; it’s my job to expose our options and highlight the freedom a man has at all times before he succumbs to the role society requests of him.
When I was younger, between the ages of five to twelve, I dreamed of getting married and having children. I became more conscious and developed self-knowledge, and around the age of fifteen, I realized that I had absolutely no desire to have a family. I knew I’d be a bad husband and father because I’d always be on the move, and that’s horrible for a family. A family requires strong roots and a strong foundation, both of which I’m unwilling to provide due to my love of adventure. When I realized this fact about myself, I dug deeper into a concept that all men have to understand before they choose their life: free-will.
Think about this concept for a minute: assuming that there’s nothing physically stopping you from doing something, you can do anything you want to do when you want to do it. The options are endless. However, with free will comes responsibility; you are responsible for what you do and what you have a hand in.
If you have properly pondered free will, you’ll know you don’t have to do what you’re told to do. You don’t have to get married even though your family keeps telling you to during Thanksgiving dinner. As a matter of fact, you can simply get up and leave the dinner table, which may be more respectable than sitting at the table and taking the family pressure.
You don’t have to spend your hard-earned money on anything you don’t want to. Don’t let anybody tell you that you have to provide for a woman; don’t let anybody tell you that you have to pay for everything on the first date. Some of you may be concerned about what others will think about you. Why? The instant you worry about what somebody else thinks about you is the instant you give them the power to influence your actions, and you lose the image you have of yourself and your future. If you want to spend your money on a brand new car instead of a grandiose wedding, do it. If you want to treat yourself to a couple of drinks at your favorite local bar instead of treating a woman out to dinner, you do it.
This isn’t to say “Never treat a woman on a date. Never get married. Never have children.” It is to say “Do it if you want to, and only if you truly want to.”
Define yourself, or somebody else will. Take control of yourself, or somebody else will take control of you.
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to.” – Bob Dylan
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