I had a thought and I’d like to hear you guys’ takes on it.
We hear all the time about guys who are stuck as friendless virgins, guys who are stuck being poor, or guys trapped in pathetic bodies, all because they don’t do what it takes to get better.
We’re told that these guys are this way because they’re afraid of all the hard, painful, and scary effort necessary to change, something I’d be the last man to deny, BTW.
But then I remembered that part of being a man is spending a lot of time doing things that are hard, painful, and scary. We do stuff we hate all the time. Hating something has never stopped us before, so why does it stop us now?
For example, take any guy who doesn’t work out because it’s outside his comfort zone, for whatever reason. He may complain that it’s hard or boring to lift heavy things or he may say that he doesn’t like being tired or sore, and for those reasons remains an overweight and out of shape couch potato who could be charged for attempted murder if he ever took his shirt off
My question is, given that he’s almost certainly experienced all of these things before, and probably far more often than he gives himself credit for, why does he avoid them when he’s perfectly capable of not only facing them but also of shrugging them off as necessary to reach a goal?
Or for another example, take any guy who doesn’t approach women because it’s outside his comfort zone. He’ll say that he doesn’t want to look like a dork or get rejected and feel bad. He’ll argue that he doesn’t have what it takes to succeed because today’s women are too shallow and materialistic to go for him.
My question is, given that he remains completely unaffected by a physically and financially superior man when he sees one on TV or passes one in the hallway, and given that talking to women he isn’t attracted to is one of the easiest things in the world for him, why does he beat himself up over things that, in any other situation, would mean nothing to him?
I think the answer lies not in how uncomfortable these things may be for the guy who endures them, but instead in how demoralizing that discomfort is.
We all know that exercise makes you stronger and healthier, but that fact implies that you are currently weak and unhealthy.
We all know that going out and hitting on women turns you into an expert DJ, but that fact implies that you are currently terrible with women.
I think that what makes men avoid the things that make them better men is not so much the discomfort that they bring, but the far more unpleasant specter of weakness, inadequacy, and inferiority that the discomfort conjures up.
What do you guys think?
We hear all the time about guys who are stuck as friendless virgins, guys who are stuck being poor, or guys trapped in pathetic bodies, all because they don’t do what it takes to get better.
We’re told that these guys are this way because they’re afraid of all the hard, painful, and scary effort necessary to change, something I’d be the last man to deny, BTW.
But then I remembered that part of being a man is spending a lot of time doing things that are hard, painful, and scary. We do stuff we hate all the time. Hating something has never stopped us before, so why does it stop us now?
For example, take any guy who doesn’t work out because it’s outside his comfort zone, for whatever reason. He may complain that it’s hard or boring to lift heavy things or he may say that he doesn’t like being tired or sore, and for those reasons remains an overweight and out of shape couch potato who could be charged for attempted murder if he ever took his shirt off
My question is, given that he’s almost certainly experienced all of these things before, and probably far more often than he gives himself credit for, why does he avoid them when he’s perfectly capable of not only facing them but also of shrugging them off as necessary to reach a goal?
Or for another example, take any guy who doesn’t approach women because it’s outside his comfort zone. He’ll say that he doesn’t want to look like a dork or get rejected and feel bad. He’ll argue that he doesn’t have what it takes to succeed because today’s women are too shallow and materialistic to go for him.
My question is, given that he remains completely unaffected by a physically and financially superior man when he sees one on TV or passes one in the hallway, and given that talking to women he isn’t attracted to is one of the easiest things in the world for him, why does he beat himself up over things that, in any other situation, would mean nothing to him?
I think the answer lies not in how uncomfortable these things may be for the guy who endures them, but instead in how demoralizing that discomfort is.
We all know that exercise makes you stronger and healthier, but that fact implies that you are currently weak and unhealthy.
We all know that going out and hitting on women turns you into an expert DJ, but that fact implies that you are currently terrible with women.
I think that what makes men avoid the things that make them better men is not so much the discomfort that they bring, but the far more unpleasant specter of weakness, inadequacy, and inferiority that the discomfort conjures up.
What do you guys think?
