A Call to Men! (Part 2)

In part 1, I talked about the influence of men in society. I talked about how men influence the identity of women, the upbringing of children, the market of video games, and many more. My main point is that we, as men, are failing. Crime rates are up, the modesty of women has become “the more skin the better”, and responsibility is constantly being passed off. Now with that in mind, I want to rally the men who are willing to read this and make the changes to their lives. Again, I want to stress that I am in no way a man-hood guru, but I have noticed some very beneficial traits that impacted me to become a better person and a better man.

In this post, I want to get really practical. I want us to recognize in our life where we can improve and keep strive to become a better person for our friends, girlfriends, wives, and future wives. I’m going to divide this up into two categories. Single men and Men in a relationship, I’m not going to comment on being a husband because that’s still a foreign concept to me.

-SINGLE MEN-
1. Get your life together! - Create structure in your life. Have a plan and plan ahead.
2. Learn how to love your friends – one of the greatest things a man has a close friend, a bro, a wing-man, a guy who will always have you back. But in order to get that one must learn how to become that guy. One of the things that ALL men struggle with is pride. Because of this, men sometimes don’t know how to be a good friend. So the challenge is to see where you’re prideful in your friendship and ask your-self “why am I prideful?”
3. Challenge your-self – one of the saddest things about men is that when we get comfortable we quit trying to grow. We don’t expand our-selves. So how do we expand our-selves? This can range from reading a book to doing an act of selflessness. Go outside your comfort zone sincerely look to put others before your-self.
4. Be “that guy” – You know what guy I’m talking about, that guy who walks into a room and you feel a sense of relief because “that guy” is here. This guy brings comfort to an uncomfortable situation. So how do you become “that guy”? Take note of "these guys" in your life, watch them, and study them.
5. Learn how to treat women – Now this seems like a now brainer, but do you, men, know how to treat women? I would be lying if I said I did, but this doesn’t excuse us from not knowing. So how do we find out how to treat women? Now I’m going to suggest something radical and I hope you follow... you ask them!
6. Learn how to serve – Learn how to serve and look for opportunities to serve.
7. Kill your pride – I touched on this earlier but I want to come back to it. One of man’s best weapons is pride. But “with great power comes great responsibility”. We sometimes take pride and create a monster. We, as men, need to understand that pride can hurt people. Just yesterday, I saw a fight break out because neither of the guys were willing to just shake hands and say “I’m sorry”. Find your pride and confront it.


-MEN IN A RELATIONSHIP-
 1. Understand what a relationship is – A relationship is a prelude to marriage. What I mean is that if you are dating but don’t have a goal in mind you’re headed for danger.
 2. Protect her heart – I can’t count how many women I’ve met that have been hurt by men. Men that were careless, not looking ahead, selfish, prideful, and didn’t know how to love. We need to understand that who we are dating is NOT our wife, and in reality could actually be someone else’s wife, so we need to treat her as such.

I believe that if we, as men, start applying some of these things into our lives we can start a new trend of what “being a man” is.