My wife and I finally went to that restaurant we had been meaning to go to for maybe a year. It is in a neighbourhood where we don’t shop or go to often. Returning from the bathroom I looked up over the doorway to the dining room and saw that famous quote attributed to Gandhi – ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. Well, yes, yes, yes. I agree. I need to hear that and follow through on that everyday. Now, I am adjusting that sentiment slightly – ‘be the man you want to meet in the world’.
Angry young men are angry young men for a reason. In part they are angry because after puberty we all receive and process more higher energy. The higher energy has more potency than we are used to receiving so if you don’t know how to deal with this new energy potency then it can be dangerous. Imagine you park your Prius outside your home at night and wake up to see a Lamborghini in your parking spot. You simply are not used to the power at your finger tips. You don’t know how to direct the abundance of potential at your disposal. It is this same influx of life force that make young men feel invincible. This can mean there are no second thoughts to drink and drive or do drugs or have unprotected sex or vandalize or be a bully. Why do all those activities if they aren’t productive? Well – to a young man that isn’t the point.
It is important to clarify here that it is crucial to get out there and have as much fun as possible. Have a party, travel, take your selfies. It is, however, not fun if someone else pays for the diversion. That means your inner religious life shouldn’t be sacrificed by you being a slave to social media or other ego based pursuits. Leave some time and energy to investigate your inner life. Leave some energy for patience (as in patience for you to understand) to understand women because they are not men.
Men generate violence because they don’t create other options.
Get patient:) Get creative! Get spontaneous!!
So why is bullying or vandalism so attractive to a young man? The young, unaware men are just using up the energy they wake up with each day. In fact if they don’t use it up then it gets bottled up and the result can be much worse. Just think of the ‘incel’. The involuntary celibate = incel. Guys who struggle socially so they sit at their computer hating women. These guys don’t understand what to do for themselves so they hate. An easy target for their hate is women. These guys actually don’t hate women. They don’t know what to do to get happy, to be accepted or who to talk to who can meet them where they are at in life and help them grow. Hate is not a good use of young man energy.
Our formal Faiths that are practiced in temples and churches are failing young men. Men need tools for maximizing their daily energy and their elevated energy. Because our society generates few real resources for higher energy focus this very potent force gets squeezed into the quotidian confines of looking for a (better)job, looking for a (better)life partner and figuring out how to look cool and make money.
We need relevant steps and tools for the spiritual aspect of life. (Check out other Wild Coach posts)
We as a society do not give our young men the references needed to understand this force that wants to convert him into a vibrant power. We do not provide inspiring opportunities for men to express themselves and figure things out. We provide the internet and floundering faiths. They need a scale of stuff to do and a reason for it so they can bridge intensity of youth into intention of life.
We as men cannot continue making women pay for our ignorance of what a man is and the stages he goes through in life. We need to know what those stages are asking of a man so he can respond and feel accomplished. So he can offer not just a bruised or inflated ego but also emotional agility instead of fragility!
Look up, breathe, smile and be the man you want to meet in the mirror, in the world.
Photo by Parker Whitson on Unsplash
The Wild Coach 