Since starting the Art of Manliness in 2008, I’ve interacted
with thousands of men from all over the world. One thing that I’ve learned over
the years is that many grown men out there simply don’t feel like men. I’m not
talking about “feeling like a man” in the cartoonish, hyper-masculine sense.
Rather, I’m talking about “feeling like a man” in the sense of that quiet
confidence that comes from moving from boyhood into mature masculinity.
Many of the guys I’ve talked to (particularly the ones in
their 20s and 30s) have confessed to me that they still feel like a teenage boy
walking around in a grown man’s body. Because they don’t feel like mature men,
many of these young men are putting off adult responsibilities like careers,
families, and civic involvement until they can look at themselves in the mirror
and say: “I’m a man.” In the meantime, these young men drift insecurely through
life, wondering when they’ll finally start feeling like grown men.
We’ve talked a lot on the site about why young men today are
struggling with the transition from boyhood to mature masculinity, including
the lack of a rite of
passage, positive male mentors, refining
challenges, and simply an understanding of what manhood is and what it
requires.
While all those things have certainly contributed to the
enervated state of modern masculinity, I think an underlying problem is that
young men today are simply following modern, conventional wisdom on how a
person “becomes” who they want to be.
Watch the Video
I’ll Do It When I Feel Like It
Conventional wisdom tells us that before we do something, we
first need to feel like doing it or feel like the kind of person who would do
that sort of thing. And in order to feel like doing something, the thinking
goes, you need to get in the right mindset, “find yourself,” or discover your
“deep inner truth.”
So young men following conventional wisdom drift through
life waiting until they feel like a man before they take their place in the
circle of men. They believe that at some magical moment in the future, they’ll
feel like a grown man, and once that happens they’ll finally have the
motivation to start doing manly things. Or they read books, meditate about
masculinity, and attend weekend men’s retreats, hoping that they’ll start to
feel like a man through pondering manhood. But they don’t seem to make much progress.
Sure, they have their moments of inspiration, but when the retreat is over or
the book is finished, they’re back to feeling insecure about their status as
men.
But the problem with conventional wisdom on how a
person “becomes” is that it doesn’t work. At least not very well. Nine times
out of ten you won’t magically start feeling like a man by simply thinking
about becoming a man. So how can you start feeling like the man you’ve always
wanted to be? By following the advice given by both ancient philosophers
and modern psychologists: to feel like a man, you have to act like a
man.
Ancient and Modern Wisdom on Becoming
Several ancient cultures and religions taught the way to
belief and personal identity was not through contemplation, but
rather though action. They understood the power that our
outward actions have on our inner psyche.
According to the Torah, when Moses stood atop Mount Sinai
and presented his people the stone tablets with the Law of Jehovah inscribed
upon them, the Hebrews spoke in unison “na’aseh v’nishma,” which means “We
will do and we will understand.” Basically the Hebrews covenanted that they
would live the Law first, in the hope that through living the law
they would eventually come to understand it. Today, this statement represents a
Jewish person’s commitment to live all the Law of Moses even if they don’t
fully understand the reasons behind each commandment. Modern rabbis teach
that na’aseh v’nishma is how one comes to understand God and
His laws for man. By living the outward ordinances, a change happens
within.
Writer A.J. Jacobs, who describes himself as a “Jew in
the same sense that the Olive Garden is Italian food,” put the principle
of na’aseh v’nishma to the test in his hilarious memoir, A
Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as
Literally as Possible. Jacobs didn’t just try to live the Ten
Commandments perfectly for a year, but also the over 600 obscure laws
found throughout the Bible, like not shaving the corners of your beard, blowing
a shofar before prayer, and not sitting where a menstruating woman has sat
(that one got him in trouble with his wife).
Coming from a scientific and agnostic family, Jacobs saw
many of the rituals and laws of his cultural heritage as strange and
irrational. But after a year of trying to live according to the Bible, Jacobs
felt his attitude shift about religious rituals and even the divine. While he
didn’t convert from being a secular Jew into a full-on theist, Mr. Jacobs now
considers himself a “reverent agnostic,” who believes “that whether or not
there’s a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred.” Jacobs credits
his attitude shift to living Biblical principles even when he wasn’t sure of
the reason behind them; he acted first without understanding to become a
more reverent person.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle taught something similar
to na’aseh v’nishma in his Nicomachean Ethics. In
the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle lays out his idea of the “Good
Life” and how to obtain it. For Aristotle, the Good Life meant living a life of
virtue. Unlike some Greek philosophers who believed that virtuous living came
only from pondering upon the virtues, Aristotle believed that understanding
wasn’t enough. To become virtuous, you had to act virtuous.
But the virtues we get by first exercising them, as
also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to
learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g., men become
builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become
just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing
brave acts.
Virtues don’t come through simply thinking about them. You
have to “exercise them.” Aristotle’s promise is this: if you want a
virtue, act as if you already have it and then it will be yours. Change
comes through action. Act first, then become.
The Patron Saint of Manliness, Teddy Roosevelt, also lived
by this principle of acting in order to become. He said:
There were all kinds of things I was afraid of at first,
ranging from grizzly bears to ‘mean’ horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as
if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid.
Teddy wanted to be fearless even though he wasn’t. Instead
of sitting around and thinking his way into courage, TR put himself into
dangerous and uncomfortable situations and acted courageously. Eventually he
became the man who led
the charge up San Juan Hill and journeyed
down an unexplored river in the Amazon. He took action in order to become
the man he wanted to be.
Modern psychologists have a theory on why acting-to-become
is such an effective way of changing who you are and how you feel about
yourself: cognitive dissonance. When there’s a conflict between your
self-perception and how you’re actually behaving, you experience dissonance or
tension, and your brain moves to close the gap by shifting how you feel about
yourself to match how you’re acting.
In her book, The
Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now,
adult developmental psychologist Meg Jay recounts an exchange she had with a
27-year-old male client named Sam who had been drifting along for most of his
adult life while living in his parents’ basement:
‘It’s weird,’ Sam said. ‘The older I get, the less I feel
like a man.’
‘I’m not sure you’re giving yourself much to feel like a man
about,’ I offered.
…
Sam had it all backward. The way he saw it, he couldn’t join
the world until he felt like a man, but he wasn’t going to feel like a man
until he joined the world.
Dr. Jay goes on to share how Sam’s attitude about himself
started to change once he began doing grown man things like starting a career,
establishing a committed romantic relationship, and moving out of his parents’
basement and into his own place. Sam started to act like a man and consequently
he began to feel like one. He gave himself something to feel like a man about.
Here’s the bottom line: If you don’t feel like a man, you
simply need to start behaving like the man you want to become and eventually
you’ll start feeling like you’re that man. Act as if. Fake it until you make
it. Your brain will eventually align your attitude/belief about yourself
with your new behavior.
Your Act Like a Man to Feel Like a Man Roadmap
If you’re ready to start feeling like the man you’ve always
wanted to be, today’s the day you begin that journey. Like any journey, it’s
nice to have a map:
1. Figure out what sort of man you want to be. The
above should not be misunderstood to mean that contemplating manliness is a
waste of time. Thought and study are indeed essential in becoming an honorable
man; it’s not enough to know you need to act, you also need to know what actions
to take. What should you start doing? Where do you hope your actions will lead
you? So
begin at the end. What sort of man do you want to become? Maybe you have a
personal hero or a grandfather or a mentor who personifies your ideal version
of manhood. Once you know what kind of man you want to be, study and
contemplate how that sort of man would live his life. What would he do when
facing adversity? What would his daily routine be like? How would he
dress? How does he treat his significant other? Form a “cabinet
of invisible counselors” to guide you on your journey.
2. Start doing the things that sort of man would do. Even
if you don’t feel like it. Once you know what sort of things your
ideal man would do, start doing them, and here’s the most important part, do
them even if you don’t feel like it. Some of the stuff you’ll have to
do will be hard, some it may make you feel uncomfortable, and some of it will
make you feel like a phony. Ignore those feelings. That’s just
the Resistance, as Steven
Pressfield would say. Know that with time, your new manful actions
will transform the way you feel about yourself. You will begin to see yourself
as a man.
3. Virile agitur for the rest of your
life. Even when you go through a rite of passage that really
transforms you and puts you on the right path, you can’t rest on your laurels.
Becoming a man is not a one-time decision or event: it’s something you have to
choose every day. It’s like shaving; just because you do it once doesn’t mean
you’re done; you still have to wake up and do it again in the morning. Virile
agitur is a Latin phrase which means, “The manly thing is being
done.” Is being done. Always and forever ongoing. Take
that as your motto for manhood.
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