Are You Allowing Social Media and Politics to Influence Your Health?

I’m personally tired of hearing about COVID-19 and the vaccine. It’s everywhere! I’m writing this, not to tell you to get vaccinated or not, but to discuss the issues I see with the way we have approached this particular vaccine. I honestly think it’s time for us to relook the way we are looking at it. We are treating this vaccine completely unlike any other vaccine we have ever had to take.

I think we, as a country, made a huge mistake by allowing this virus to become politicised. We all ran in fear and locked ourselves in our houses because we subscribed to the hysteria we saw on Social Media. The vaccine has polarized us in a way I honestly didn’t expect to ever see. Generally, it has been liberals who have fought against vaccines. Now, it’s conservatives that strongly oppose the idea of getting this one, particular vaccine. 

The way we are approaching this vaccine is completely political, and not actually grounded in any sort of truth. We are fighting this one particular vaccine, without fighting any others.

I don’t know your stance on getting the flu vaccine regularly, but you either do, or you don’t. Why? Why are you for or against it? Does your choice have anything to do with anything you’ve seen on Social Media? Does your choice have anything to do with what your friends and family are doing? Does your choice have anything to do with what political party you are a member of? 

How about the HPV vaccine? Have your daughters been vaccinated against HPV? Why did you make that decision? Did that have anything to do with anyone else? Some schools have actually mandated that vaccine as well, yet nobody seems to be up-in-arms about a vaccine to protect our children from a Sexually Transmitted Disease. Children we, as parents, assume aren’t having sex. Yet, we lined them up and got them the shot.

Does anyone else see a problem with that way of thinking? Anyone at all?

In 2019-2020, the flu vaccine prevented an estimated 7.5 million cases of influenza (USAFACTS, n.d.). Americans were vaccinated at a rate of 51.8% and, as data continues to be refined, influenza is far less deadly than COVID-19. We saw mortality rates from the flu at 1.8 deaths per 100,000 population (CDC, n.d.). COVID-19 now has a mortality rate of 224.64 deaths per 100,000 population (Johns Hopkins, n.d.), 66.4% of Americans are fully vaccinated from COVID-19 (CDC, n.d.). Based on the alarmingly different mortality rates, it is a good thing we are vaccinating at a greater rate for COVID-19 than for the flu. And, it may be reasonable to expect the numbers of vaccinated to increase once vaccines are approved for younger children. 

I still think, even after looking at the actual stats, there is a huge discrepancy in the way we treat this vaccine compared to any other. Less than 2/1000th a percent of the population dies from the flu, yet we vaccinate more than half our population, including infants as young as 6 months. Yet, 2/10ths a percent of the population is dying from COVID-19 and we politicise our resistance to the vaccine. 

What’s even more alarming, to me, is that we politicise it the way in which we have, yet ⅔ the population is vaccinated. What are we fighting about? Why? 

I have no authority to tell you to vaccinate yourself or your children. I won’t presume to make any choices for you. I will tell you that you are probably looking at it in a way that is incredibly wrong. Stop looking at vaccines from a political standpoint, and start looking at it the same way you look at every other vaccine.

References

CDC. (n.d.). COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States. https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-total-admin-rate-total

CDC. (n.d.). Influenza. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/flu.htm

Johns Hopkins. (n.d.). MORTALITY ANALYSES. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

USAFACTS. (n.d.). How many Americans get flu shots? USAFACTS. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-get-flu-shots-vaccine-cdc/

Showing Up Shows the World What is Important to You

You just have to love a good, deep conversation on a Thursday afternoon like the one I had today. Today we talked about the importance of showing up. When is the last time you showed up for someone that is important to you?

There are plenty of ways people can show up for us. They can be physically present at special events or times of great distress. They can be emotionally available when we need a shoulder to cry on or an ear to vent to. Or it could just be a stranger that helps us change a tire or chases us down after we leave our phone in some random location. 

Showing up isn't something easy to define, but in a lot of ways, we all understand what the term means. It means you are on board. When you are a part of someone else's journey, you show up for them. When you are in charge of your own journey, you show up for yourself. Both are positive attributes as it shows the world you are someone to be counted.

Throughout your life, there have been events that were important to you. Whether those events were T-Ball or football games, a school play, graduation, a wedding, a birth, a promotion, you looked to the stands to see who showed up. 

As a kid, you wanted your parents or grand parents to show up. It was important to you; so important, you can remember, years later, the list of those that did or didn't show. As an adult, who you look for changes. You look for a spouse or significant other and your best friend. If it's important to you, you invited very specific people and they are the ones you wanted to be there. They are the only ones that mattered. And you took a mental and emotional note every time.

If someone is important to you, you need to be there at those events. You need to show up. If you don't, If you can't be there at the truly important moments, it won't matter how much you care, you run the risk of it not being enough. People are social. Your kids are looking in the stands at every game. Your spouse wants you there even if they tell you it isn't a big deal. They may not even think it is a big deal at the moment, but years later, they will look back and know if you showed up more or less. They'll know if you showed up more or less than someone else.

Showing up isn't even about the event itself. It's about supporting someone else in their accomplishments and their endeavors. You don't have to like football to show up. You don't need to have graduated and you certainly don't need to agree with the path of study they chose to show up. You don't need to know how to help someone in distress to show up for them. The circumstances pale in comparison of importance to being physically present.

There will be times when you can't be there. There will times when distance or events are obstacles that can't be overcome. But the big events have to take priority over much of anything else. You don't need to prioritize the event, it's irrelevant, you should however, prioritize the person at the event. 

Take the time to show up for the people that matter to you. Show them they are important and that they matter.

Stand Up for Yourself or Sit Down

There are a lot of weak people in the world. The truth is, as humans, we are probably getting weaker physically and emotionally at a similar rate to the post-COVID inflationary period. I would just like to tell you, stand up for yourself, or for others, or shut up and sit down.

I bring this up because my daughter recently stood up for herself while being bullied by another student after school. Because she stood up for herself, society punished her. How? Assault charges. 

My daughter allegedly defended her and her sister’s honor by physically repelling their assaulting bully. Society has no place for this however, in the state of California anyway, which is sad. Because she stood up for herself with more than words, she allegedly committed a crime. I talked to my daughter about what she has been accused of. Whether or not she did defend herself using physical means, I’m proud of her for taking a stand against someone bullying her and verbally attacking her. She should NOT have to stand for that behavior, ever.

Following the alleged incident, the parents of the bully “victim” went to the police to file assault charges against my daughter. Legally, they have every right to do so. Legally they are in their right to go to the police for assistance. Technically, what my daughter is accused of, is illegal.

In societal reality, the people who went to the police because their son allegedly got his ass beat by my daughter need to relook how they are raising their son. They should have come to me or my kids’ mother to discuss the issue. They should also talk to their son about not running his mouth if he isn’t able to back his words up. 

Society is headed, in my opinion, in a downward spiral where talking to each other from behind keyboards is building a false sense of security in us. We can easily shoot angry, hurtful words at people from a distance and know, with most certainty, we are safe from any form of retribution. This sense of security does not transfer to the streets or real life however. In the real world, words start wars. 

I’m not an advocate for violence, but I am an advocate for keeping your mouth shut unless you are willing to fight for the words escaping your lips. If you think you can say anything you want and everyone is just going to take it, you’re wrong. I’m also not advocating for tough guys to spew garbage from their mouths simply because most people are incapable of doing anything to shut you up. 

I think if you run your mouth, you need to be prepared to get slapped. More people in this world NEED to get slapped. People need to wake up and realize there are consequences for the things they say and do. 

If you can’t back up your words with actions, sit down and shut up. If you get called on your bullshit by someone physically, emotionally, or mentally stronger than you, too bad. You lost. That doesn’t give you the right to go get help. There is nothing “right” about getting others to fight your battles for you. 

Stand up for yourself or sit down and shut up!

You Have a Greater Capacity for Evil

You have a much larger capacity for evil than you realize or understand. Most of us absolutely do not believe we are capable of doing the things we hear in the news, read in history books, or see in Hollywood productions. The reality however, is most of us are capable of the exact things we know are terrible and evil. You need to understand your own capacity for evil before your morals are questioned or you are likely to fail the test.

When we read history or see terrible things happen on television or in movies, we tend to sympathize with the victims of wrongdoings. We are particularly susceptible if we have a history of being a victim at some point in our lives. We feel sorry for the victims and we romanticize our ability and desire to help those in need. The very notion of helping a victim however, isn’t something you are actually likely to do. You are more likely to walk away or, worse, record it with your cell phone. This propensity to ignore evil is the reason we tell our daughters to cry out “fire” rather than “rape.” We are more likely to help when there is no victim, when there is no evil being done. When we know evil is being done, we walk by and pretend we didn’t hear or see anything at all, if we even walk away. You should be trying to understand the perpetrator. You should realize you are more likely to be that person.

Our world is filled with Social Media posts created by people, just like you, who would rather record someone in great distress than help the victim. You have watched people get shot or stabbed, people get physically assaulted, property get destroyed. You’ve seen people drive recklessly and perform completely antisocial acts, detrimental to and in direct violation of social norms. You’ve watched, commented, and shared the atrocities. You’ve likely even thought to yourself, “one day I’m going to be the person that records something like this so I can get famous.”

Throughout history, we have done terrible things to each other. We all think of the atrocities conducted by the Nazis in the 1940s and recognize those actions as completely evil. We can’t understand how humans could perform such terrible acts on other people. Yet, as much as we were shocked by the notion of concentration camps in Nazi Germany, we were putting Japanese Americans in internment camps at the same time. It wasn’t until 20 years after the end of WWII we started talking about the fact we were segregating Americans based on the color of their skin. We didn’t worry about burning women “witches” at the stake. We still judge and even perpetrate people with opposing political views.

You may think concentration camps and segregation are two separate things, but really, they are one and the same in several ways. Both we and the Nazis divided people based on difference. Rather than including, we denied those different from us were as human as we are. Both were directly shaped by societal norms. Both events led good people to do terrible things. Both were conducted by the majority of the populace. Some numbers suggest 99% of Germans, fully knowing the atrocities were terrible, participated and agreed, publicly, to some degree. It was better to agree with grotesque hatred, mutilation, murder, and genocide than to risk our own state in the world. History tells us things would be no different today. History tells us, you and I would probably do the exact same. We would gladly watch people get brutally killed in a colosseum, burned at a stake, defamed on social media, or gassed, in-mass, in a gas chamber before we would actually stand up and risk joining the victims.

Even though we want to be strong enough to not be shaped by society, we often rationalize our actions based on events surrounding us. If everyone else is doing it, yes, you are going to do it. You are going to do it because it is easy, socially acceptable, and you believe your comfort is more important than that of others. People have been known to rape their own kin just to be part of a gang. Chances are, you and I would do the exact same. Even though you are reading this thinking, “no, I would NEVER do ANY of those things,” the statistics are undeniable.

I won’t argue that people are inherently evil. I’m not saying you are only pretending to be good. I think you are just as susceptible however, as 99% of humans are,  to rationalize evil as acceptable and participate in the conduct of terrible things. I think you won’t even hesitate and may not even realize the thing you are doing is evil. You may not understand the depth of your evil until years later. That’s the saddest part of all of it. We get so wrapped up in the justification and rationalization of our actions, we never take the time to understand our actions. We don’t look to learn for the things that motivated us to do evil. We don’t look for ways to make ourselves better. We don’t create the cognitive dissonance within ourselves necessary to grow.

Yes, you are very capable of absolute evil.

You Have the Capacity to Love

This week’s writing really stems from listening to and thinking about some of the people I’ve known throughout the years. I have met a few people in life that choose to avoid committed, monogamous relationships as well as people who choose never to have children. I’ve also met people that run from relationships that could lead to either monogamy, marriage, and especially children. Some say these people lack the capacity to love. I say all these people have the capacity; they just don’t see what’s holding them back. If this is you, you too have the capacity to love.

Understanding your aversion to anything that looks or sounds like love, is about understanding yourself. Its probable you grew up in a challenging home when you were young. You likely didn’t create strong attachments with your parents or siblings. You may have been abused, but more likely, you were neglected. You think this is your fault. You believe there is something wrong with you, that you are unlikable, unlovable. You don’t believe you were the victim because you actually believe it was your fault.

It isn’t your fault. You weren’t neglected because you were born unlovable or unlikeable. You were born just as cute and loveable as everyone else. Everyone adored your cute smallness and your toothless smile. Unfortunately, you were born into circumstance that prevented your parents from giving you the attention you needed. Likely, they know this, and wanted to do better, but couldn’t due to whatever life stressors they were dealing with. It isn’t your fault at all that you were raised the way you were. It is just what happened.

You are right about one thing. You aren’t capable of love. Not right now, anyway.

In order to love another, the way they need to be loved, the way you weren’t when you were young, you need to first learn to love yourself. You need to be comfortable with who you are. You need to realize that you are, in fact, likeable and even loveable. You must not blame yourself for the way you were raised. You have to stop believing the way you were treated in the past will always be the way you are treated. You must not believe the “truths” you know until you have completely dissected them.

I’m not suggesting you cast blame. I’m not suggesting you get angry with your parents, although that may be the correct emotion for some of you. I am suggesting you seek to understand your circumstances as you were brought into the world. Understand the environment in which you were raised. Believe those circumstances, that environment, had nothing to do with decisions you made. You were a child. You were not in control of the situation. There was little or nothing you likely could have done differently to be treated better or been given the attention you needed in your development of emotional and social intelligence.

Blame remains useless, even after you understand everything. You are only responsible for your actions, not the actions of others. Be accountable for your own actions, and understand that nothing anyone else does is your fault. You may influence someone’s decisions, but the actions they make are their own. You are not responsible for their actions or their emotions. You are accountable for your own.

This realization is powerful. When you start to realize you are the product of the circumstances within which you were brought forth, you can begin to understand that you are likeable and loveable. Understanding then allows you to become a better person, undefined by your past. You will then seek the power to define yourself. You will begin to change the decisions you make when it comes to your health, your relationships, your hobbies. You will start to treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping.

This is when you will gain the capacity to love. Once you understand you are in control of your own decisions and you are more than the by-product of the past, you will be able to shape your future. You will begin to believe you can be liked, and even loved. You will not fear being loved, because you will not expect the rejection and pain that you are used to experiencing. You will not be afraid to love a tiny human, because you will believe you are capable of giving that child the attention it deserves, the attention you didn’t get.

You have to do the work first that leads to loving yourself and caring for yourself, but once that work is done, you will have the capacity to love.

Your Ghosts Will Destroy You Unless You Are Ready for Them

You cannot hide from your ghosts. You cannot escape your demons. They are a part of you. They are connected to you the same way your shadow is.

I met with a veteran this week. Someone who served in the same unit I did years ago. We didn’t know each other at the time, but we still shared some of the same experiences simply because of what we went through. We know many of the same people and have similar stories.

During our discussion over a beer, we talked a lot about life in general. We exchanged old stories, laughed about old times, shared what has been going on with us the last few years, and uncovered some of the life stressors we are dealing with. Talking and connecting with veterans is always a valuable experience for me. I really enjoy the comradery that comes with shared experiences and hardships. There is a lot of value in talking with someone whom you don’t feel the need to hold back from.

One thing that I always look for when I’m talking with other veterans, is an understanding of whether they have uncovered and dealt with all their demons yet. In this case, I don’t believe this man has. He knows they are there, present, and he has learned to deal with them, but I couldn’t help but feel as though there is more he still needs to deal with. He hasn’t completely prepared himself for when his demons may attack again.

I find most people don’t effectively deal with their ghosts. Most people hide from them and do what they can to avoid situations that give their ghosts strength, but they don’t really deal with them. You can’t assume that you can hide from your ghosts. You can’t. They are a part of you, like your shadow. Building walls around yourself, your mind, your heart, won’t keep the ghosts away. Walls only keep out the people and things that may actually be able to help you defeat your demons. You need friends and loved ones to help you, if you are lucky enough to have real friends and loved ones. They can protect you while you go through the hardship of dealing with the scariest, most painful thoughts you can ever have; memories.

To defeat your demons, you have to understand them. You have to need to recall those memories. You need to relive those situations. You need to study the moment your ghost was created. I suggest, if you know your ghosts are powerful, you do this in the company of other people. People that have your back. People you can cry with, people that will hold you down, people that will protect you from yourself.

Think through everything you can about the moment your ghost was created. Picture in your mind every decision you or others made that led to that moment. What sounds did you hear? What smells were present? What faces were there? What, exactly, were other people doing? What did you miss that allowed the terrible thing to happen? What could you have done differently? Then, relive the terror that created the ghost. Understand it completely. Understand the moments before, after, and during that horrible experience. Once you’ve done that, you can begin to label and understand every emotion associated with that time. The guilt, fear, terror, hate, pain, loss, love.

Defining the emotions lets you know what power your demons have over you. Reliving the experience, understanding it, lets you prepare for the future. Understanding means you will recognize the events that led to the terror and you will be able to avoid it. You can avoid the horrible situations that create such pain inside yourself. You can start to see that situations are not your fault. You can stop blaming, and start growing. More importantly, you will be stronger than your ghosts.

You cannot avoid your demons. They will always come for you when you least expect them. You can however, be prepared for when.  

Bhagavad Gita: A Song of Socialism and Slavery

I recently got turned on to a really profound podcast, linked below, where the host and guest converse about a religious text called the Bhagavad Gita. Written sometime in the first millennium BCE, the Bhagavad Gita is often referred to by yogis and many philosophers for its profound thoughts on seeking inner perfection.

I think the text is mostly trash. I’m not one to downplay religious scriptures, there are certainly some good lessons we can all learn from scriptures. I would even go as far as to say, its important that most people read and subscribe to a religious text so they gain, and willingly employ, some set of morals and something actually guides them.

I think the Gita is largely misunderstood today. I say that, because most of us don’t actually look at the Gita from the perspective of the average person of the time. During that time, life was absolutely miserable. There was little good about daily life. Every moment was centered around trying to ensure you had a meal for the following day. You were trying to make sure you had enough meat on your bones that the local tiger would think you were too much of a problem to take down. You farmed all day to feed yourself and your family, if you were even farming for yourself.

Listening to and reading about the Gita, I get an overwhelming feeling the entire thing was really written in an effort to control the masses. It was written to keep the miserable and the slaves calm. It gave them a holy reason to continue being miserable. The Gita taught we should just be happy doing our work, our duty, without worrying about how terrible it is. Its our duty because it is for the greater good.

The Gita is written as though god is talking to a soldier on the eve of battle. The soldier is afraid that he will have to fight and kill as well as being afraid of dying. The god he is talking to tells him not to worry about it. A warrior is to do a warrior’s duty. None of us die, because we will just be born again. Our lives never truly end, we are just born into another body. Also, if our duty is to die, we should die in the best way possible.

I’m still working my way through the Gita, yes, I’m actually going to read it after the podcast, but I can’t help but feel as though the whole thing is written to control slaves in a very socialist way. Bhagavad Gita was written to promote socialism and slavery.

Vengeance Will Only Hurt You

I’ve seen plenty of circumstances in life when people have felt truly wronged. I’ve witnessed men lose limbs and seen the sobs of men who have had their friends ripped from existence. I’ve seen the faces of once-warm people, turned cold with pain, suffering, and fear. I’ve seen what the pain of loss can do to a person. I’ve met hardened men and later thought to myself, “those guys are emotionally compromised; they are incapable of doing what they need to do.”

When you experience such extreme amounts of pain, if allowed, it will change you. Your heart will become cold. You will learn to hate. You will want vengeance. You must never allow yourself to become vengeful. Vengeance, retribution, retaliation; these actions will destroy you.

How can you tell if you are becoming a vengeful person?

A vengeful person seeks confrontation, berating people who remind them of those who did them wrong. If you are vengeful you seek to turn others against someone. You blame other people for everything that goes wrong. You avoid people and situations that remind you of terrible circumstances. You create disturbances or problems with people associated with individuals, or even try to get people in trouble at work. In extreme circumstances, if left unchecked, you become the kind of person that murders people who remind you of the one(s) who wronged you.

We all know the stories of various war crimes; atrocities committed against innocent people because they reminded the offenders of the subject of their hate. Hatred seems to lead to generalizations which equate to racism and end in hate crimes.

We all suffer from loss. None of us started the day expecting to receive the phone call which bore such terrible news. None of us thought we would see people we care about get hurt or killed. We don’t go through our day expecting crimes to be committed against us or our loved ones. Sadly, we all experience these pains to some degree or another. We lose family or friends in terrible accidents, atrocities, violent circumstances. The unforeseen, uncontrolled loss causes us to question our faith. These things, if we allow them, will destroy us and lead us down dark paths.

When you experience terrible things, you have to look inward. No, it isn’t fair these things happened to you. But you have to understand and come to accept the terrible things that happen. You fight back, by staying in control. Allowing your emotions to turn to hate will drive you to vengeance against a person or people that will never undo the past.

You can’t correct the mistakes of others by making your own. You cannot right the wrongs by wronging. You cannot understand by refusing to listen to and understand your own emotions. Seeking vengeance will only hurt you. Choosing to things you would otherwise be morally opposed to will change you forever in a way you don’t want to be changed. Acting only out of anger will make you into a person you do not want to be.

Vengeance will only hurt you. Vengeance will destroy you.

Vulnerability: Letting People Peel Back the Layers Makes You Stronger

 

Allowing other people to peel back your layers makes you a stronger person. We have a tendency to protect ourselves from everything outside. We want to believe we are right, we know what we’re doing, and we’re just. We often aren’t however, and may not know that until we’ve really asked ourselves hard questions about our actions past and present.

In Jordan B. Peterson’s book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, Peterson devotes an entire rule to the idea we need to dig into our pasts and understand them to move forward without making the same mistakes (Peterson, 2021). Peterson tells us we have to peel back the layers of our emotions from the past. We have to know what decisions we made and why we made them. We have to understand how we ended up in situations that led to traumatic experiences. Knowledge and understanding the past, frees us to make better futures for ourselves.

We suppress traumatic experiences. We want to walk away and simply forget experiences that hurt us. We want to forget people that cause(d) us pain. Unfortunately, we never will. Those experiences will always hold a place in our minds. Man has yet to discover a way to erase memories, to undo the pain caused by extreme circumstance. Until that way is found, we must deal with the ghosts of our past. We will experience triggers and act according to those triggers because they bring up a sense of extreme dread, fear, even panic.

What’s worse, is it doesn’t matter if we were the victim in our past or if we were the villain. Terrible experiences bring terrible consequences to our emotional and psychological health. These traumas shape our present and are impacting our futures. There’s a way to get through them however, and learn to build a better future for ourselves. There’s a way to prevent making the same mistakes.

Digging into our past and uncovering all the emotions associated with traumatic circumstance can free us from the past. Seeking understanding of our own emotions allows us to see the triggers before they occur, recognize them, and make better decisions. Through understanding our past, we can shape our future.

Good friends and loved ones can help us with our healing. People you are close with often ask personal questions. You will resist them at first, but learning to be vulnerable with those important people will make you a better person. Questions answered honestly, openly, and without fear of judgment will lead to more questions. Some of those questions, you may have never asked yourself. Getting someone else’s opinion about something you’re doing or something you experienced can help you discover knew ways of looking at terrible circumstances. They will never take those experiences from you, nobody can, but talking through it, with the intent to understand, can save you from a lifetime of bad decisions in the future.

Open up to the people that matter; the people that care about you. Tell the story and answer the questions. You will discover you haven’t dealt with it yet, or that you looked at it wrong the entire time. You will find opening up and being vulnerable makes you stronger. Allowing someone else to guide you through the layers of your life, because they have a genuine interest and concern, will make you a better person. You will avoid repeating the past because you understand it. You will learn. You will be a better person.

https://whateverhappenedtohonor.blogspot.com/2021/04/vulnerability-strength-not-weakness.html

Dad Bod vs. Six-pack: Understanding Primal Urges

Last week’s post sparked good discussion. I was challenged in stating that Dad Bods are not preferred by the average woman. It’s worth expanding however, because my short statement does sound like I’m claiming we are all shallow.

I won’t say that attraction is purely physical. Attraction even complex on completely primal levels. Foregoing primal attraction however, writing it off and telling ourselves and each other that such things are shallow, doesn’t give due respect to what makes us human.

Before I expand, I need to define, in my way, primal attraction. The idea of primal attraction is based in the evolution of mankind and societies across the globe. Long ago, every day was a fight for survival. To be human meant to hunt, gather, and avoid death. Being human meant we constantly worried about our next meal as well as becoming a meal or someone else taking our resources forcefully. People fought and killed each other over lands that produced food and were close to water. People killed each other because they wanted to take what other people had.

For all these reasons, societies began to form. Tribes were created. People banded together for protection of loved ones, each other, and resources. With the evolution of tribes, man had time to think, tools were developed that made life even easier. We learned we could work the soil and grow food. We learned to craft weapons to make hunting easier and to better defend ourselves from other tribes that wanted what we had.

Tribal life was very different than the lives most of us experience today. Our ancestors had to be assets to their tribe. Each person was either asset or liability. Hunters were assets. Gatherers were assets. Resources were assets. The most import asset of all during ancient times were people. People held great value if they were an asset to their tribe. Assets were attractive on a primal level.

In ancient times, all that mattered to most people was primal attraction. Men were, and still are, attracted to women with large “childbearing hips” because on a primal level it means that woman is more likely to produce children. Those women are less likely to die during childbirth. Women were, and are, attracted to men that look strong. A man’s strength in primal humanity means he can defend the tribe and the family from aggressors. A strong man can defend his resources. He can fight off the Saber Tooth or the raiders from other tribes. He can work the land and producing food. A strong man is capable and an asset.

A fat man is slow and incapable. A fat man, the guy with the beer belly, didn’t know how to work, didn’t hunt, and would die quickly in a fight against most opponents. A fat man was incapable of defending his tribe. He was a liability and unwanted. A fat man was, and is, not attractive.

Today, most of us aren’t truly this shallow. We can look beyond someone’s physical appearance and see the other qualities a person has. We have time now to look for things beyond a man’s ability to fight or a woman’s ability to produce children. I am not suggesting we remain so primal that we cannot look beyond physical appearance. I am however, suggesting that none should discount the fact these primal urges remain.

Dad Bod is a very lose term. It is something between a guy with a six-pack and a guy that is completely obese. Nobody today will say an obese person is more attractive than a guy with a six-pack. If they tell you that, they are lying. If they believe that, they are lying to themselves.

I’m not saying you must have a six-pack to be physically attractive. I am saying you need to look strong to be physically attractive. You need to look like someone that can carry themselves. You need to look like you can defend your tribe if called to do so. You need look like you could work the fields if needed. You need to look like someone that can and will defend their family, their tribe.

We have all heard or read many women say they are turned off by a guy with the six-pack for various reasons. These are men that care too much about themselves. These are guys that spend more time at the gym than they do at work or at home. These are men that look too good, better than their women. The problem I have with these assessments, is they are completely intellectual or emotional, not physical, not primal.

Everyone is familiar with the movie Magic Mike. Do we honestly believe that movie would have done so well if all the actors had Dad Bods instead of six-packs? Are we really willing to sell ourselves on that lie? Women don’t go to Chippendale’s to see guys with Dad Bods. They go to satisfy their primal urges. Women watch that movie and go to male strip clubs because it appeals to their primal side.

I do believe we are all deeper than that. If we can be a little better however, why aren’t we striving for that? If I am emotionally and intellectually attractive to my partner, why not make myself an even more attractive partner? Why not be the very best I can be so I can always be attractive to my partner? I don’t want to just be eye candy for my girl. I would never suggest that, and it goes against most of what I write about and believe. I do, however, want to appeal to my girl’s primal side as well as her other sides. I want to appeal to her shallow side and her deep side.

Men, we know each other well. You know your lady’s worth. You also know how the minds of men work. You know there are men out there that see what you have and want it. There are men out there that want to take from you. If you aren’t prepared to defend what is yours, they will boldly come after it. If other men see you as weak, they will walk over you.

I challenge you to ask yourself and answer honestly. Are you an asset to your tribe? Do you appeal to the primal needs of your tribe? Or are you a liability?

https://whateverhappenedtohonor.blogspot.com/2021/05/grab-yourself-by-balls-and-be-man.html

Grab Yourself by the Balls and Be a Man!

 

Grab Yourself by the Balls and Be a Man!

I spent some time this weekend with friends and met some new people. One couple I met this weekend, I would argue, may be headed down a dangerous path. I’m not sure, I’m an outsider and I don’t know what works best for them, but it was a path I would not recommend. Actually, it became the source of later conversations and now, this writing. The husband has put his balls in his wife’s purse.

The couple I met this weekend is completely typical. Actually, we all know couples like this and may even be in relationships exactly like theirs. We all know the husband. He is the dutiful man, working and living his life in a very emasculated, subservient way. He seeks his wife’s permission for everything. He drives the car his wife thought was best for the family. He doesn’t golf or otherwise get out on his own to keep track of his own mental and emotional health or spend time with the guys.

She is also typical. She allowed him to buy a motorcycle. She tells him how to do things more than asks him to do things. She absolutely wears the pants and is in charge of the relationship. I certainly didn’t ask, but I guarantee she withholds sex as way of punishing, wields it as a weapon.

The sad thing, I think, is this is not only a typical relationship, but it is one likely doomed. The utter emasculation of a man in a relationship not only has detrimental impacts on the man, but risks erasing much of what made him attractive from the beginning of the relationship, his masculinity. Despite social norms, I do not believe women actually are primally attracted to beta males anymore than they are attracted to dad-bods. It’s a fallacy, a lie told by society so people feel better about themselves. The way so many American women work to fatten and subjugate their husbands is both sad, and counter-productive.

I do think women do this for a reason, I just think they underestimate the long-term impacts of the approach (I’m speaking in general terms). I think many women DO like, in the eyes of other women, to make their men look less attractive. I don’t think this is intentional, but I think it adds a sense of security to the average woman. By being married to a man that isn’t attractive to other women, there is less concern he will cheat, less concern he will leave, and more assurance in the security that is marriage and family. An overweight beta male is less likely to get hit on by other women. He is less likely to hit on women and receive positive feedback. He is more likely to come back home where he feels secure knowing he has a woman that does love him, even if she doesn’t always show him that love. I think that security is false however, because if you really asked the man in that relationship how he felt, he would probably tell you he feels unloved and disrespected.

Men, if you are allowing yourself to become a fattened beta subject to your significant other, you are failing yourself and you are on the path to separation. Regardless of how many times she says she prefers your dad bod, she doesn’t. Unless she has some sort of genetic defect that tells her body NOT to reproduce with the strongest, most likely to survive father of her offspring, she prefers a fit man capable of throwing her over her shoulder and carrying her to his cave. Regardless of how much of a fight she puts up against the idea of you winning and establishing your masculine energy, she probably wants you to, and is going to get a little turned on by your stubborn, masculine energy. Assuming you aren’t doing anything wrong, and aren’t doing anything that will risk your relationship or your tribal (family) goals, you have no reason to secede your point. Truth be told, she wants to know that you are more of a man than she is. She needs to know it. You are the man in your relationship, right?

I’m certainly not someone that can tell you what is right for your relationship, but I don’t believe in losing yourself to someone else. If you have agreed upon tribal goals and a way forward, you should be working together on that, but you also need to be true to yourself. Being in a relationship doesn’t mean you have to always agree, it just means you’re going in the same direction and you’re going that way together because you want to. You can’t agree just because its what one person wants. You’ll quickly find yourself working in different directions assuming you’re working together and not realize you’ve grown apart until you are years down the road. You need to be the best you possible. You need to be fit. You need to be strong. These things that make you a better you make you a better asset to your tribe. They make you more attractive to your significant other. They make you more attractive to other women too, this is true, but they don’t matter. Your tribe matters, so be the best you possible for them, the rest will take care of themselves.

If you disagree, grab yourself by the balls and disagree. That is truth. That is honesty. That is honorable. If something is worth fighting for, grab yourself by the balls and fight. Fight for what is right. Fight for the sake of being true to yourself. Fight for what is yours.

 

 

The World is Mostly Assholes

The World is Mostly Assholes

I have to admit it is difficult for me to write the above title, but I’m starting to believe it. I have always been someone that believes people are inherently good, not inherently evil. Recently however, I’ve questioned my own beliefs on that stance and am wondering if I have been naïve. I’m starting to believe the world may, in fact, be mostly filled with assholes.

A few months back, something happened that changed my whole world for a little bit. Someone created a derogatory post on Social Media aimed at hurting me and a friend of mine. I was accused of cheating on my wife. This particular post was put on the local community’s “vent page,” and it instantly exploded.

The community jumped on the post. People I had never met started recounting situations of me with other women, asking for sexual favors, receiving sexual favors, and sleeping with multiple women across the community. Women from the community were commenting, retelling their stories of their time with me. Men in the community did the same toward my friend, saying they, or someone they knew, had slept with the other subject of this particular post.

The originator of the post grew to a level of local “celebritism (new word)," few in our world can hope to attain. My friend and I however, suffered the consequences of this particular post. Some good, but mostly unwanted attention. It became difficult to go into the local grocer or gas stations, because living in a small community means everyone knows who you are. Alleged scandals can’t be escaped. Work even got involved and had some pointed questions for me. 

Still today, I can’t have lunch with a co-worker of the opposite sex without someone calling or messaging my ex to inform her of my whereabouts or the company I’m in. My friend gets calls to let her know the same. 

The truth is, I never met any of the women that made allegations against me. I have no idea who they are or why they thought it was ok to make accusations against me. The same is true for my friend. She doesn’t know the men claiming to have intimate relationships with her. And I don’t go out to eat lunch anymore, I eat alone. Though I don’t have a problem going out to eat with any of my co-workers or female friends, I’m tired of this community “telling on me.” I’m completely disheartened by the actions of the community. I am saddened by humanity.

I had to do some thinking about the overall situation, but I came to the conclusion stated in the title for this week’s post. People are mostly assholes. History tells the same story.

Throughout time, like sharks, people flock to the scent of blood, prey on the weak like wolves, and circle the dying like vultures. Coliseums were built based on human desire to see people bleed and die. People used to get dressed in their Sunday Bests to attend beheading, hangings, and to watch “witches” get burned at the stake. People would accuse others of being witches just so they could watch them die.

Today is no different. I know you want to believe people are different now, but I know first hand that isn’t true. People will do or say anything just to watch others suffer. You know it’s true too. You have seen videos online of people getting hit, ran over by cars, and shot. Most of the time, the recording is done by a person that thought first to pull out their cell phone and record the action rather than try to help someone in need. And you can see in the video there are others also recording. More than likely, nobody will go to help the person in need. The truth is, nobody will come to help you either.

You will want to believe I am tainted by my personal experience. In reality, I am not tainted, I’m enlightened. I now know exactly what to expect from people. I also know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of humanities thirst for blood. I’m now more likely to stand up for others, because I know they people inciting the riots, causing the harm, recording all of it, probably don’t even realize they’re being an asshole. But, they should probably read some of my earlier posts.

Watch your back. Be a better person. Grow.

The world is mostly assholes.

Admitting and Learning from Your Mistakes: You Actually Aren’t Smarter, More Competent, or More Moral Than the Average Person.

Admitting and Learning from Your Mistakes: You Actually Aren’t Smarter, More Competent, or More Moral Than the Average Person.

You are just like everyone else. You are probably not smarter than the average person. You are probably no more competent than the average person. You are likely not more moral than the average person. You need to understand these things before you will be ready to admit you are wrong and before you can grow.

Most of us have an innate belief we are better than the average person. There is a pretty obvious reason this isn’t true. The word “average” actually refers to you. It refers to me. It refers to all the people you went to school with, work with, and every member of your family. It refers to almost everyone we know. The simple, hard truth, is you are likely very similar in intelligence, competence, and morals as the average person. You probably are, in fact, average.

It is natural to believe these things about ourselves. In fact, it's the way the average person, just like you, thinks. It is a part of your brain’s way of influencing your abilities in self-preservation. Your brain has a way of tricking you into believing you are correct. Most of the memories you have are actually not even correct because your brain, on a subconscious level, has altered your memories, pulling information from several places inside your brain, to fit the story you need to hear. You think you remember exact details, but really, your subconscious is just beating you to the punch line and showing you what your conscious self wants or needs to believe in order to fit your story.

This is why it's so hard to admit you’re wrong. You don’t actually believe you are. Somebody else wronged you. It was their actions or words that justified your actions. You had to do what you did because it was the smarter, more moral course. To be wrong, creates cognitive dissonance inside you, an internal war in your mind that makes you question your own morals, your intelligence, your capabilities. Admitting you are wrong is difficult and goes against what your conscious and subconscious mind wants for itself. Admitting you’re wrong feels like you are dumber than average, less competent, or possess lesser morals.

Below is a link for a podcast from The Art of Manliness which is worth listening to as the guest, a senior psychologist, explains more on cognitive dissonance and the difficulty we have admitting we are wrong. He provides some interesting insights into how our feelings about things actually change based on our actions as we go through life. He addresses the war we have and offers some really good advice on how you can recognize you are wrong and then grow through that admission and experience. He discusses how you can stay in that state of cognitive dissonance and use it. 

Admitting you’re wrong is one of the hardest things you’ll ever have to do. It will force you to grow. It is extremely uncomfortable. It is worth it. It will probably make you smarter, more competent, and more moral than the average person. 

Why Is It So Hard to Admit You Were Wrong? - The Art of Manliness | Podcast on Spotify

Masculinity and the Modern Man: Stop Acting Like Your Mother.

Masculinity and the Modern Man: Stop Acting Like Your Mother.

American society is waging war against her men. Social Media, Hollywood, and the streets are paved with the bones of men. Men are ridiculed, torn down, and eaten alive for displaying masculine qualities. Some of this has a degree of merit, but I feel it’s often overstepping personal boundaries and crossing a line. We are on the verge of taking purposeful active emasculation too far. It's a confusing time for men in this country who do not find themselves well grounded in who they are.

With the women’s rights movements of the 1960’s, great accomplishments which should be celebrated, we created a shift in what the world knew as the nuclear family. The importance of men in families, acting as a father, has become less “important,” is no longer “needed,” and today we actively tear father’s apart. I find these beliefs utterly wrong. The denigration of men who are no longer with the mother of their children are titled “baby daddies” and demonized by society. This attitude is creating a circular and very destructive cycle.

I was raised by my mother and I know she did the absolute best she possibly could. As hard as she worked however, she was never able to teach me anything about being a man. She may have had words about it, talked about how to properly treat women, but she was never able to show me those things. She could never show me what it meant to be a good father. She could never show me what a positive male role model looked like, because I never had one. This is the same story of countless men today.

There’s a difficult transition as boys grow into adulthood. In John Eldredge’s book, Wild at Heart, he talks about a shift that occurs in adolescent men. We tend to try to pull away from our mothers and seek more masculine energy. I equate this to a natural pull on us to seek out our own drives, our own adventures, our own tribe, to become a man. We crave the masculine energy of our heroes. We start trying to find our way among men. We seek adventure in different forms and challenge ourselves to achieve greatness. 

All too often however, we find ourselves stumbling through this transition without good male role models. We tell each other to man up, but we don't know what that actually means. We turn to other men our age, many of who are also clueless about what they are doing, and we try to learn from each other, though not consciously. Fortunately for women in this country, they are far more likely to have role models and learn what it means to be a woman, though they are similarly finding themselves without positive male role models and they are cursed with not learning what to look for in men.

None of this is a rant against women. Really, it's a rant against my fellow men. While I think we're torn down too much and man-hating is very real, we aren't doing a good enough job of actually manning-up in solidarity and holding each other accountable. 

Men need other men. We need to coach each other, mentor our sons, and be available when another man needs it. 

In my mind manning up means standing for what you believe in. It means seeking perfection through a constant drive to achieve greater things tomorrow than we did yesterday. It does mean protecting and providing, but doing so without losing yourself. It means calling other men on their bullshit, and accepting criticisms when we need them. It's about the internal struggle to he better. 

The classic views of masculinity still ring true. When the call comes, stand up and go to proverbial war. Keep yourself physically strong so you can fight for and protect what's yours. Stay driven toward your goals, unflappable in your resolve. Be angry when the time is right.

Self-Talk is Bullshit - Stop Hiding, Start Acting - A Rant

I have to say it. I’m really sick of all the positive self-talk memes that constantly flood our Social Media. I’ve seen countless memes telling people how important they are, how much better they are than other people, how they are exactly who they are supposed to be. It’s bullshit, and I think it is honestly getting in the way of people’s ability to grow.

I constantly see posts about not allowing other people to be negative influences on our psyche, and I do agree with that at its core, but what if I told you feedback from anyone is still feedback. The most evil people in the world will attack your greatest vulnerabilities because that is where you are weak. Telling myself “that person is just evil and I deserve better,” doesn’t actually help me work on my weakness. 

I do believe there is power in both negative and positive self-talk. I believe good self-talk can keep us thinking in the right ways. We can remind ourselves we are strong enough to deal with the situation we’re in. We can convince ourselves to keep driving forward toward our goals. On the contrary, negative self-talk tells us we aren’t good enough, we never will be, and we should probably just quit. Clearly we need to avoid negative thoughts.

I challenge however, that positive self-talk without action isn’t as powerful as we need it to be. We can’t just tell ourselves we’re awesome like everyone wants us to believe. We aren’t special. We aren’t entitled to perfection. Being extraordinary requires disciplined self reflection, initiative, and action toward the goals we want and sometimes need to achieve.

Unpopular opinion: Sometimes you’re the one that’s wrong. Sometimes you’re the person that needs to listen to other people when they say you need to work on some things. Sometimes that feedback, those criticisms, can drive self-reflection and growth. If we allow our self-talk to get in the way of reflection, we will never grow. If we can’t look internally to see our own faults, we can’t manifest ourselves into greater beings. 

Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we need to admit that, not to others, but to ourselves. The power of self reflection is that it enables us to take feedback and criticisms, even the ones that are grotesquely harsh and mean, and learn from them.

Do not shy away from the people that attack you. Pay attention to them. They will teach you where you are weakest. They will show you the areas you most need to work on. Then, use that information for your own personal gain. After you have strengthened those areas, then you will be ready to move on. After growth, you can rise to bigger challenges. Do not turn a blind eye to vulnerabilities, embrace them and turn them into strengths.

Grind: A Strong Body Means a Strong Mind

Grind: A Strong Body Means a Strong Mind

We need to grind. Exercise is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves.

Many men suffer from mental illness. An estimated 26% of Americans actually suffer mental illness in some capacity. Depression attacks 9.5% of adult Americans each year and around 18% of us suffer from an anxiety disorder (John Hopkins Medicine, 2021). Men are four times more likely than women to attempt suicide, though women are more likely to attempt.

These numbers are staggering. I believe there is one thing we can all do however, to ensure we are doing what we can for our own mental health: Exercise.

We all know the obvious physical benefits of exercise. Weight management, reducing disease, strengthening bones and muscles, and improving the ability to do everyday activities are all physical benefits of exercise (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). We all benefit from exercise regardless of our age, ability, shape, or size. What is less known, and still largely being studied, are the benefits exercise has on our mental health.

Physical exercise has some immediate benefits to our mental health however. Our brain health is positively impacted almost immediately following a moderate exercise session. Short term benefits include improved thinking and cognition as well as reduced short-term feelings of anxiety. Regular physical activity has long term impacts on our mental well being and can help us keep our thinking, learning, and judgment skills sharp as weage. It can also reduce our risk of depression and anxiety and help us sleep better (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021).

I found in several articles the benefits of exercise on brain health. Though many of these findings are still being studied, the research supporting that exercise benefits brain and mental health is robust. Research suggests that exercise even reduces cognitive issues in schizophrenia (Gingell, 2018). We can also reduce the effects of ADHD and PTSD through exercise (Robinson et al., 2020).

I think men, in an effort to maintain their own masculine energy can especially reap the benefits from exercise. I work with men regularly who are going through difficult times in their lives. Many of the veterans I talk to are feeling stress from day-to-day life and are slowly losing confidence in themselves. The best advice I can give any man, veteran or not, who is feeling the impacts of aging, a slowing metabolism, the stress of work and family life, is to exercise. 

Exercise will decrease your stress and build a buffer against it, distract you from negative thoughts and emotions, help you find your confidence, and rebuild your social network with other supportive men (Star, 2019). Exercise can also give us a boost in testosterone levels which every man needs as we continue to age (Metcalf, 2015). Your lady may also benefit from you benefitting here. 

I can go on and on about the benefits of exercise. As men, bottom line, I believe we need exercise. We crave the outdoors, the hunt, the road. We exist to do manly things. Part of being a man is to be strong. Your lady wants you fit, you want to be fit. Mostly, your mental health requires that you train your body. Physically challenging ourselves mentally challenges us. Getting up in the morning for the single purpose of training, fighting against the snooze button, struggling to get out the door, succeeding at these things (the hardest parts of exercise) builds in us the mental toughness we need to be strong men.

Go grind!

Works Cited

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Benefits of Physical Activity. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/pa-health/index.htm

Gingell, S. (2018, March 22). How Your Mental Health Reaps the Benefits of Exercise: New research shows why physical exercise is essential to mental health. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/what-works-and-why/201803/how-your-mental-health-reaps-the-benefits-exercise

John Hopkins Medicine. (2021). Mental Health Disorder Statistics. John Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/mental-health-disorder-statistics

Metcalf, E. (2015, May 06). Does Working Out Affect Testosterone Levels? WebMD. https://www.webmd.com/men/features/exercise-and-testosterone#:~:text=When%20you%20exercise%3A%20Your%20testosterone%20levels%20vary%20throughout,a%20bigger%20effect%20on%20testosterone%20in%20the%20evening.

Robinson, L., Segal, J., & Smith, M. (2020, October). The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise. Help Guide. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-living/the-mental-health-benefits-of-exercise.htm

Star, K. (2019, August 10). How Physical Exercise Benefits Mental Health. Very Well Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/physical-exercise-for-panic-disorder-and-anxiety-2584094#:~:text=There%20are%20several%20reasons%20why%20physical%20activity%20can,6%20Exercise%20provides%20a%20buffer%20against%20stress.%20