Growing up, I used to worry that I wasn’t a real man because I was too sensitive and too emotional. I thought I wasn’t aggressive enough and shied away from competition. I thought I was weak. I had many judgments about what it was to be a man by witnessing the males around me, and I didn’t fit them.
I thought if I’m not bullying someone, I must not be a man. If I’m not forcing myself on women, I must not be a man. If I haven’t built a family; if I haven’t settled on a career, if I’m not drinking to bury how disappointed I am with my life, I must not be a man.
I bought the masks and lies, conscious and unconscious, of the adults around me that at some magic point you get it all figured out. You have a career, a family and you keep plugging along with some level of satisfaction until you die. I don’t think that’s true at all.
These judgments and many more hounded me for years, but I’ve come to realize that is all utter bullshit and these days I know I’m a man because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. That is the most courageous and honest thing any man can admit to.
I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m doing my best.
For generations, men buried their fears, buried their doubts, and buried their worries until that underlying darkness expressed itself in the rage and anger of physical and verbal abuse. Or it took more energy and substances to keep stuffing those feelings from being seen, creating stress, misery, sickness, and premature death.
I’m pissed at all the men who came before me who held their emotions in check, who pretended everything was fine, who taught future generations that being a man meant denying your fears and doubts, that being a man meant living under a mask. That mask kills. Take off the empty veneer and be authentic. Take off the pretend stoicism and feel your pain so that the wounds can heal. Take off the mask and be better than a man, be a human.
Some men have admitted to me that they have confessed their thoughts of doubt and fear to their spouses. Their spouses have sometimes been their best friend, perhaps their first friend they could say anything too. But telling your fears and doubts to one person doesn’t fix it.
It can relieve the pressure, but if those feelings don’t go beyond the person it’s shared with, nothing can indeed be resolved. The expectation that someone else can fix you destroys many relationships. Your spouse might not have any experience with a man being honest. There has to be some inner work, and it takes effort to dig through your shit and not just end up believing you are shit. It takes peers, friends, coaches, mentors, trusted elders, community, faith…
Sometimes the toughest part about being a man is being honest about not knowing what the fuck is going on, and being okay with that.
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