Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment… the present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.
~ C.S. Lewis
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An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.
~ Chesterfield
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The superior man wishes to be slow in his words and earnest in his conduct.
~ Confucius
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The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Think like a man of action. Act like a man of thought.
~ Henri Bergson
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Masculinity-as-cultural-construct is one of those beliefs that sounds good in the abstract, perhaps. But I think most folks, men and women alike, feel deep in their gut that it isn’t so, isn’t desirable, and isn’t working. As someone who has examined the research and history of masculinity, I find the idea of it being wholly a cultural construct utterly untenable. It is a conclusion one can reach only by willfully ignoring large swaths of the data and the human experience.
~ Brett McKay from, The Dead End Roads to Manhood
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Masculinity is not — not “entirely”, nor even “mostly” — a social construct. I believe one is free to attempt to take on whatever role one wishes. (I see that as one of the big benefits of our current level of human progress.) But if you attempt the role of a “Man”, you do not get to simply make up what you think a Man should be.
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That’s where we are as a culture. We run desperately to abstraction and avoid action at all costs. Thoreau’s man of “quiet desperation” has never been so prevalent. The world is full of men who are “stuck” in life. There has been some mass paralysis. Modern man has forgotten how to take action.
~ Kyle Eschenroeder, from 10 Overlooked Truths About Taking Action
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Curious: My self-perception is that I too often charge ahead doing things. By which I mean, I should more often take some time to reflect, think-through, etc. I am frequently way off on a tangent doing something, which from the hind-sight of next year, was clearly not a good expenditure of my efforts.
Curiouser: Others tell me that I spend way too much time figuring out systems and trying to sort-out/plan every little detail of something. When what’s needed is to make a few steps forward.
Curiouser and curiouser: What if both of these ideas are perfectly correct/true?
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But if aspiring was our true fulcrum, you’d be on your throne already. Here’s the truth: It’s not the heights we aspire to but the FLOOR WE PUT UP WITH that determines our place.
~ Bryan Ward from, Stop Aspiring
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A good friend recently said something to the effect of, “Life is full of compromises which you cannot avoid. So don’t compromise with yourself.”
I find both of these things are very useful for me to keep in mind.
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…as we flee the discomfort of the wild without, so we flee those of the wild within, estranging ourselves from the power and beauty of the uncharted life…
~ Bryan Ward from, What Happens When Men Flee The Wild
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The un-examined cake will bury you in a never-ending steady stream of slow debris, your life wasted in lower-order, derivative problems.
~ Bryan Ward from, What Happens When Men Shirk The Deep Fix
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