The 10 Man Laws – What it means to be a man

The 10 Quintessential Man Laws

 

1.    Every day, be a better Man than yesterday.  I have spent my whole adult life working on becoming a better man.  I chase it today.  A big part of being a man is showing up every day in life like you mean it, that you are committed to doing today better than you did yesterday.  I think that the “better than yesterday” road map better be a big monstrous vision of your day and life, too, not just working/ paying bills/ waiting for something to happen that will magically make your life happy or better.  The only magic you have, you were blessed with the day you came to this planet.  And it belongs to you… for better or worse… no one else… just you.  Everyone else has their magic, you have yours.  Every day, make it better.

 

2.    Know your purpose, know why you came here.  So many men don’t live their purpose.  That sucks.  You came to this life for a reason.  You and your Creator are in an active conspiracy to make this life exactly what you want it to be.  You can claim you don’t know, and perhaps consciously you don’t – you may have forgotten.  But like anything stuck on the tip of our tongue, if we care about it, we will remember it.  Remember this – you are here for a reason.  Find it.  Own it.  Live it.  And laugh at any obstacle that gets in your way!  What you will discover is that you asked for the challenge/ obstacle to begin with.  Eleanor Roosevelt (a very smart woman, read lots of stuff by her) asked a question, “Is Failure the Opposite of Success?”  Most say yes, she says no.  Failure is not only NOT the opposite, it is integral to success, AND, the bigger the success or purpose you have, the bigger the failure you need en route to succeed.  The opposite of success is not trying.  A lot of men sit on the sideline of life whining about the rules or their place in the game or some other silly crap.  Live large.  Love large.  Own your purpose.

 

3.    Enjoy every day you have here.  Some might tell you this is a holding place, do well here, and you might get to heaven.  Wrong.  This is heaven.  You are living on a planet that is hurdling through space at 8000 mph, (by the time you finish just this sentence, you have already travelled about 56,000 miles.  How cool is that?  There is sunshine and rain and bugs and pizza and women and flowers and dislocated elbows and ice cream and divorces and hate and love and all kinds of really neato stuff.  Find all of it.  If you are living large, you will.  If you are worried about nonsense, you are going to miss a lot.  Know this, many hunger for the day they win a lottery or some other blind luck.  Guess what, you already won the lottery!  There are about a trillion, trillion life forms on this planet (mammals, fish, insects, bacteria, one-cell amoebas, plankton, you-name-it…) and oh, about 7 billion humans.  You are one of the very fortunate 350 million who is an American. You are one of the less than 3 million Coloradans… And of them, you have your health, your brains, some wealth, you are in the top 1% here, and if you look at the numbers on life forms, you beat the lottery odds by a factor of 10,000!  So enjoy your winnings!  Live large!

 

4.    Man Law #4 is found in many belief systems, know this one well.  If a man is in the middle of a desert, and he speaks, and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?  Of course!  So get over it. It is far better to be kind than it is to be right.  Women are magical, wondrous creatures.  Be grateful every day, every breath of your life, if you find the love of a good one.  Make it work.  Do what it takes.  Most relationships, when 1 + 1 is joined, the sum is 1.5 or 1.2 or 0.8, and that is why most marriages end in divorce.  Most people want to be made whole, because the truth is, they can’t figure that out themselves.  And your partner can’t make you whole.  You have to show up that way.  Then the marriages that stick together, 1 + 1 is 2, or 2.5, or a sum that is greater than the parts.  And those are good marriages.  However, when you realize you have been blessed with an angel on earth, when you love and protect her above even your own life and feelings and desires, when you cherish the ground she is ABOUT to walk on… and she returns that love… you are a far greater Man for loving her… and 1 +1 = 15.  It is not hard, just understand Man Law #4, and you can get there.

 

5.    You have one vessel to travel this planet – take very great care of it.  You are not fragile.  You are amazing!  Your body is wondrous beyond words.  The power and potential and possibilities that exist in your space ship are incredible.  But if you feed it crappy fuel, don’t sleep and rest it enough, don’t exercise it to cause it to grow and thrive, and put toxins like cigarettes, drugs, or other poisons, then you risk throwing everything you won in the lottery out the window!  Don’t do it!  Be kind and loving and gentle to your body.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t gorge on Thanksgiving, eat well on a vacation, or not drink 8 glasses of water every day.  But for about 340 days a year, work it hard, push it, sweat in it, stretch it, feed it the best of fuels, hydrate it, love it, and it will love you back.  And when you have your health, you have it all.  If you challenge your health, then you risk losing everything.

 

6.    You are not broken, you never were. Our culture is really turning soft in many respects.  We have more syndromes, more disorders, and more pharmaceuticals in the population than anyone ever imagined.  We feel so bad about ourselves, we have to declare everyone a winner for doing nothing.  Don’t listen to the popular noise.  There is nothing wrong with you; you are not broken.  Most believe life and reality is this thing that they wrestle with or go with or struggle with, and it’s not.  You know what life is?  It is merely recipe cards.  Think about this:  over there is this amazing chef who make the most awesome meal on the planet.  Now most people record that they can’t cook, that they might be ok with the basics, or whatever they think, very few believe that they are as good as that chef there.  But the Truth is, he just has great recipes.  Even if he does it naturally and never looks at a recipe card, if you stop him in the midst of a dash and measure it, if you grab his pinch of that, and duplicate it… you will discover that if you follow his recipe exactly, you will have his famous awesome meal too.  Success and achievement in life, joy and happiness in life, having the life you want… in many ways is just a recipe card… AND… after you learn from the best… it is time to believe in you and your ability to whip up ANY meal that you wish: love/ money/ joy/ power/ purpose/ it doesn’t matter.  Find the recipe card.  Then make it your own.  Then make it better.  Every day.

 

7.   When you change the way that you look at things, the things that you look at will change. Reality is not real, you are!  The storms of life never cause reality, how you react to them do.  Do you focus on the devastation, or do you see what you get to rebuild?  Do you focus on what you lost, or do you focus on what you gained?  Life is always waiting for your response.  Life always flow… there is no oak tree worried it is a maple.  Yes, wildebeests are wary as they graze, they look up frequently, and yes, sometimes a lion drops on them and that is the end.  But they don’t run stress hormones in their body 10 hours a day.  Life on this planet does not create stress – it creates flow, growth, and joy.  Change the way you are looking at your life – and life will reward you by changing.

 

8.    Cherie Carter-Scott wrote a magnificent one-pager called “Ten Rules For Being Human.”  I really, really like Rule #4: you are here to learn lessons. If you don’t learn them, life will continue to present them to you until you do learn. If you don’t learn, life will make them harder and harder until you do. When you have the lesson down, then the next one appears.  You WANT hard.  You WANT challenges.  They are the essence of life – you grow, you get better, you become a bigger Man.  Don’t whine about it.  Don’t plead for easier.  Build a better you.

 

9.    Play the game with grace, dignity and respect… For the game… for the competition, for the rules, for the referees, for the winners and losers, and for the love of the game…  Only a few men get to be leaders.  You do that by caring far more about your sheep than you do about your “shepherd status.”  Have true compassion for others.  Don’t judge.  Allow them their magical, spiritual journey.  If they are toxic, you have every right to keep them at arm’s length or longer.  But don’t judge them.  Love them.  For on the other side, you will understand your kindred-ness that you didn’t understand here.  And maybe the next time, you’re the bad guy and they’re the good guy.  Be kind.  Be gentle with your strength.  Demand life to bow at your feet – not because you want its rewards (which it will give you) but because it makes you a better shepherd – you can take care of your sheep so much better.  But if you fear, or you worry about what others think, or you join the bungling masses bleating out their pain and judgment of others… then you will miss the beauty that your Creator has put in front of you, in all its forms, all its apparent beauty, and oftentimes (and this is when you really can peer into God’s heart) when you glimpse beauty in the dark and ugly and less-than… Oh, then, my sons, you can soar… then you can REALLY soar into your life and purpose and God-ness.  And if you struggle at all with the first nine rules, in this rule, take all the love, all the release from judgment, and fill your heart and body with gratitude.  Being thankful is probably the most powerful elixir, the most amazing drug on the planet… and when you can find gratitude in the midst of the game, when you are getting your butt kicked (because finding gratitude on Christmas morning, while real, doesn’t really grow a man much) and you find authentic gratitude then?  You are a man.

 

10.    The likelihood that you will forget everything I write is high – so whatever, go write your own ten rules! That will be YOUR best life anyway!