6 lessons for men

Family isn’t interested in this topic. For them, the most important thing is that you are healthy, happy, and successful. That’s good, but it’s not enough.

It’s difficult because many men feel a void in this part of their lives. They waste their lives on meaningless things, wander aimlessly, and adapt to life’s circumstances instead of creating them.

Changing this way of life can be fast or slow, but one thing is clear — it must change.

When I needed clear guidance, the book The Way of the Superior Man was the first major turning point in my life.

It gave me clear instructions on what to do to grow from a boy into a man.

I will share with you 6 important and practical lessons from the book that will help you unleash your masculine energy, live a fulfilled and meaningful life, and walk the earth with strength and confidence.

Let’s begin:

1) Live as if your father is dead

“A man must love his father, but still be free from his expectations and criticism to be a free man.”

Imagine your father is dead, or recall when he died. Are there feelings of relief connected to his death? Now that he is dead, is any part of you happy that you no longer have to meet his expectations or endure his criticism?

How would you live differently if you never tried to please your father? If you never tried to prove to him that you are worthy? If you were never burdened by his critical gaze?

For the next three days, do at least one activity each day that you have avoided or suppressed because of your father’s influence. In this way, practice being free from his subtle expectations, which may now be inside your own judgment. Practice being free this way, once a day, even if you still feel scared, limited, unworthy, or burdened by his expectations.

2) Stop hoping for anything to ever be finished

“Most men make the mistake of thinking that one day something will be ‘done.’ They think:

‘When I retire, then I will finally be able to rest,’ or ‘One day my wife will (something) understand and stop complaining,’ or ‘Now I do this so that one day I can do what I really want.’

The masculine mistake is to think that one day things will fundamentally be different. They won’t. There is no end. As long as life flows, the creative challenge is to fight, play, and make love with the present moment while giving the world your unique gift.”

It will never be over, so stop waiting for good things. From now on, spend at least one hour daily working on whatever you have been waiting for—whether it’s finances getting better, children growing up and leaving home, or finishing your obligations so you can do what you really want.

Don’t wait anymore. Don’t believe in the myth of ‘one day.’ Do what you love to do, what you’ve been waiting to do, what you were born to do—now. Spend at least one hour a day giving your fullest gift, whatever that is, despite everyday obligations holding you back.

But beware: you might discover you won’t or can’t do it; that your fantasy of a future paradise is just a fantasy.

Most procrastination is an excuse for lack of creative discipline. Finances and family responsibilities have never stopped a real man from doing what he truly wants. But they have stopped those who are not mature enough for the challenge.

Find out if you are willing to do whatever it takes to fully give your gift. As a first step, today spend at least one hour giving your fullest gift so that when you go to sleep at night, you know you could not have lived your day with more courage, creativity, and giving.

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The world will always put unforeseen challenges before you. Either you live today fully, giving your gift amidst those challenges, or you wait for an imaginary future that will never come. Men who have lived meaningful lives are men who never waited—for favorable moments, security, money, women.

Feel what you most want to offer the world and do everything you can to give it today. Every awaited moment is a lost moment, and every lost moment degrades your clarity of purpose.

3) Know your limits, and don’t fake them

“For a man, it is honorable to admit his fears, shortcomings, and limits of his practice. The simple truth is that every man has his limits, his capacity for growth, and his destiny. But it is dishonorable to lie to yourself or others about your true place.

You should not pretend to be more enlightened than you are. The better a man understands his limits, the better company he is for other men, the more trustworthy he is, more authentic, and more present. Where a man’s limit lies is more important than whether he lives his limits in truth rather than laziness or delusion.”

Choose an area of your life—maybe an intimate relationship, career, relationship with your children, or spiritual practice. For example, right now you do something to earn a living. Where do your fears prevent you from giving a greater contribution to humanity, having higher income, or earning more money in a more creative way?

If you were completely fearless, would you earn your living the same way you do now? Your limit is where you stand and progress, but instead live your fears.

Have you lost contact with the fears that limit and shape your way of life? If you deceive yourself and think you are not afraid, then you are lying to yourself. Everyone is afraid unless they are perfectly free. If you don’t admit it, you deceive yourself and others. Your friends will feel your fear even if you don’t feel it yourself. That’s how they lose trust in you, knowing you deceive yourself and thus will probably lie to them, consciously or unconsciously.

Or maybe you are aware of your fears: fear of risk, fear of success, fear of failure… Maybe you are satisfied with your life and afraid of the life change that might follow a career change, even though that career would be closer to what you truly want to do.

Some men even fear the very feeling of fear so much that they don’t approach their limits at all. They choose jobs they know they can do well and easily but don’t approach giving the fullest expression of their gift. They miss liveliness, depth, and inspiring energy which are signs of living on the edge. If you are such a man who withdraws, other men will not be able to trust you to help them live on the edge and give their gift.

As an experiment, describe your limit in terms of your career, out loud to yourself. Say something like: “I know I could earn more, but I’m too lazy to put in extra hours. I know I could give more of my gift, but I’m afraid I won’t succeed and then I’ll be broke. I’ve spent 15 years developing my career, and I’m afraid to leave it and start over, even though I know I spend most of my life doing things that don’t really interest me.”

Respect your limits. Respect your choices. Be honest with yourself about them. Be honest with your friends about them. A scared man who knows he is scared is much more trustworthy than a scared man who is not aware of his fear. And a scared man who relies on his fear, lives on his limit and from there exposes his gift, is more credible and inspiring than a scared man who is in his comfort zone, unready to experience his fear daily.

A free man is free to admit his fears without hiding them or hiding from them. Live with your lips pressed close to your fears, embrace them, neither withdrawing nor aggressively disturbing them.

4) Lean a little beyond your limit

“At every moment, a man’s growth is best optimized by leaning just a little beyond his limit, capacity, and fear. He should neither be too lazy and happily stagnate in his comfort zone, nor push far beyond his limit, unnecessarily straining, unable to metabolize his experience. He should lean just a little beyond his fear and discomfort. Constantly. In everything he does.”

Once you are honest with yourself about your limits, it’s best to lean just a little beyond them. Few men have the guts for this practice. Most either settle for the easy path or exaggerate by going to an extreme difficult path.

Your insecurity may lead you to doubt yourself and take the easier path, never approaching your limit and gift. Alternatively, your insecurity may cause you to push, push, push trying to overcome your feeling of lack.

Both approaches serve to avoid the real state, which is often fear. And if you avoid your fear, you cannot relax into fearlessness.

Your fear is the sharpest definition of you. You should know that. You should feel it, practically all the time. Fear should become your friend so that it no longer makes you uncomfortable. Instead, fear shows you that you are at your limit. Staying with fear, staying on the edge allows you to reach real transformation. Neither lazy nor aggressive, playing on the edge allows you to see the moment with the least distortion. You are ready to be with what is, rather than trying to escape by withdrawing or pushing yourself further into some future goal.

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Leaning just a little beyond your fear compassionately challenges your limits without trying to flee the very feeling of fear. Step out of the solid ground of safety with an open heart. You stand in a space of not knowing, raw and awake. Here, the gravity of deep being pulls you to the only place where fear is obsolete: the eternal free fall home.

Own your fear and lean a little beyond your limits. In every aspect of your life. Starting now.

5) If you don’t know your purpose, find it now

“Without a conscious life purpose, a man is completely lost, wanders, adapts to life circumstances instead of creating them. Without knowing his life purpose, a man lives a weakened, impotent existence, and may end up sexually impotent or prone to mechanical and disinterested sex.”

The core of your life is your purpose. Everything in your life—from diet to career—must be aligned with your purpose if you want to act consistently and with integrity. If you know your purpose, your deepest desire, then the secret to success is disciplining yourself to support your purpose and minimize distractions in life.

But if you don’t know your purpose, then you cannot align your life with it. Everything in your life is disconnected from your core. You go to work, but since it is not connected with your deepest purpose, it is just a job, a way to earn money. You go through everyday life with your family and friends, but every moment is just another in a long series of moments leading nowhere, not truly deep.

Disconnected from your core, you feel weak. This emptiness will kill not only your ‘erection’ in the world but also your erection with your woman.

However, when you know your purpose, your fundamental desire in life, every moment can become a full expression of your purpose. Every moment of career, every moment of intimacy, is filled with the strength of your heart. You no longer just go mechanically through movements at work and with your woman but live the truth and give the gifts of your love moment by moment. Such a life is complete in itself in every moment.

A real man does not seek fulfillment through work or woman because he is already full. For him, work and intimacy are opportunities to give his gifts and to disappear in the bliss of giving.

6) Renew your purpose in solitude and with other men

“A man rediscovers and fine-tunes his purpose in solitude, in challenge, and in the company of men who do not tolerate his excuses. Women best strengthen feminine energy in the company of other women, in shared celebration and play. A man must organize both forms of renewal: his own solitude and male gatherings, and his woman’s time with other women.”

If you spend too much time with your woman, the worst thing will happen to both of you. To get along with you, she will start adopting masculine behavioral patterns, denying her desire to flow in play and pleasure. You will start adopting feminine patterns of touch and affection, denying your desire for directness.

In short, the goddess and the warrior become neutral hosts who only share the softest game of sexual polarity.

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Two ways that will bring you to your limit of power are asceticism and challenge.

Asceticism means removing comfort from your life where you have learned to snuggle and lose your alertness. Remove everything that numbs your edge.

No newspapers or magazines. No TV. No sweets or cakes. No sex. No cuddling. Don’t read anything while eating or sitting on the toilet. No movies. No conversation that is not about truth, love, and the divine.

If you practice these disciplines for several weeks, along with other disciplines that may cut through your unique dullness habits, your life will be stripped of routine distractions. Only the edge you have avoided with daily routine will remain. You will have to face the discomfort and dissatisfaction that is the hidden texture of your life. You will be alive with the challenge to live your truth instead of hiding from it.

Unadorned suffering is a partner of male growth. Only if you stay present with your personal suffering can you feel it to its source. By investing your attention in work, TV, sex, and reading, your suffering remains impenetrable and its source hidden. Your life completely becomes structured by your favorite way of avoiding suffering, which you rarely allow yourself to feel. And when you touch the surface of your suffering, maybe in the form of boredom, you quickly grab a magazine or remote control.

Instead, feel your suffering, embrace it, make love with it. Feel your suffering so deeply and thoroughly that you penetrate it and understand its terrible foundation. Almost everything you do, you do because you fear death. Yet, dying is exactly what you do from the moment you are born. You can either participate in that sacrifice, dissolving the giving of your gift, or you can resist it, which is your suffering.

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The second means, besides asceticism, for discovering your male core is challenge. Shallower forms of challenge include activities like hiking, competitive sports, climbing courses, camps. These forms of challenge immediately revive a sense of purpose and direction, in both men and women.

Deeper forms of challenge include directly giving your gift in ways blocked by fear. For example, if you have always been afraid of public speaking, you can accept the challenge to speak in public once a week for three months. If you fail and miss a speech once a week, next week you have to give three lectures. If you have always wanted to write a novel but never finished it, tell friends you will finish one chapter weekly (or monthly) in the coming year. Every time you miss the weekly goal, you owe your friends $100. If you miss your yearly goal, you owe them $10,000.

The point is that there must be consequences for freezing in fear. The obvious consequences of freezing in fear when climbing or doing competitive sports are clear. You must insert consequences for life unless you want to catch yourself in a safety net of superficial pleasures.

The most powerful forms of male realignment involve strictness and challenge. Go into the middle of the forest alone with only survival necessities. No reading or doing anything. Starve yourself of food and don’t sleep as long as possible. Challenge your attention with a practice such as singing or ritual movement so your attention does not wander or become comfortable. Be open and wait. Don’t cover your suffering. Don’t give up before you go through the hole of your fear and emerge with a vision of your true mission, the unique form of your higher sacrifice.

This kind of isolation and challenge is an extreme and powerful form of seeking male vision, but there are also common forms useful in everyday life. Spend time every day in solitude, without distractions. Just sit for ten minutes. Without fidgeting, changing channels, or flipping through magazines. Just be exactly as you are, not trying to change anything.

Just as your woman must regularly spend time only with women, so must you regularly spend time with men. At least once a week, gather with your male friends to serve each other. Cut the crap and talk honestly with each other. If you feel your friend is wasting his life, tell him because you love him. Welcome such criticism from friends. Propose challenges so you push each other through fears limiting your surrender in giving. Always agree on consequences if you don’t persist in the challenge. For example, if you agree to give public lectures three times a week, also agree to mow your friend’s lawn if you miss a lecture day.

You should alternate such gatherings of ‘cutting the crap’ with male celebrations. However, even during these celebrations, there should be a challenge and you should remain aware and undistracted. They are not an excuse to give up fullness but for connection beyond fear. Maybe you all swim in icy cold water together. Or drink until drunk, then spend the rest of the night singing praises about the mystery of existence—no one is allowed to ‘zone out.’ Whatever you do, share as much love as possible with friends, not settling for mediocrity or less than your fullest gift.

Written and translated by: Nemanja Kurlagić – psychotherapist by the O.L.I. method