|
The Manly
Art of Dying Young
©2003 Stuart W. Rayburn
The symbols of manhood in America today
include a cold beer, a steak on the grill,
and a recliner to catch the game. But do
these sacred symbols of manhood really have
anything to do with being a real man?
What does it mean to be a man anyway? I
offer the following as true purpose of a
real man:
- · To provide for your family
- · To be a leader in your home
- · To raise your children to be
good people and to contribute to society
- · To be an example of how to
live
- · To instill hope in the future
so that your children can realize their
dreams
- · To show young boys in your
home and community how to be good men
- · To contribute to your community
so that the world is a better place because
of you
I think that about covers most of it. It
looks like quite a bit is expected of us
men. I would dare to say that many of us
are not stepping up. So how are you doing?
The first item alone keeps most of us so
busy that we don’t have the time we
would like for the others. As you can see
these are not things you can put on your
to do list and cross them off one day. They
occur over the course of your life and although
you can’t do them in a day it is your
daily actions that determine whether you
will successfully fulfill your duties. Let’s
take a look at how your daily habits impact
your success as a man.
The life of the typical American man can
be summed up pretty quickly. You work 45
hours a week at a job that you don’t
really enjoy. At 25 you start to put on
some weight. Once you hit 30 your at least
30 pounds overweight with a “healthy
paunch”. You spend most of your waking
hours behind a desk or the wheel of your
car. At forty you really slow down and have
constant aches and pains, you may already
be on medication for high blood pressure
or high cholesterol. It is pretty much downhill
from here. You spend the next 25 years dealing
with one ailment or another, worried when
prostate cancer or a heart attack will jump
out and grab you. Then finally you succumb
to one of these killers at 45, 50, 60, or
maybe you’ll make it 70 and spend the
last 10 years going from your urologist
to your cardiologist before you finally
leave your family and friends.
So how did it get to be like this? You
need look no further than your daily routine.
Every day you wake up grab a cup of coffee
and a donut that you eat as you drive 30
minutes to work. Then you sit in your office
for 9 hours. During the day, you might run
out for a burger, fries, and coke for lunch
and perhaps snack on a candy bar to break
you out of your mid afternoon slump. On
the way home, you pick up a pizza because
your wife has also been working all day
and no one feels like putting a meal together.
After dinner you flop down in your recliner,
perhaps enjoy a cold one and spend the rest
of night in front of the television.
Do you think that this daily routine will
get you closer to fulfilling your duties
as a man? How does your routine compare
to this? I think that if you re-examine
the important duties of any real man you
will find that it is necessary to have a
long healthy life full of energy to be a
success. You can’t just pour your energy
into your business because your family will
suffer. Although they may be well off financially,
without investing time and energy in your
family you will come up painfully short
in all other measures of manhood. It is
not enough simply to provide for your family,
because it is all the other things that
determine your real legacy in life.
It is not necessary to be exhausted after
6:00. It is not necessary to be overweight.
It is not necessary to die before you have
even had a chance to retire and enjoy the
fruits of your labors. It is not necessary
to tell your grandchildren that you can’t
chase them around the yard. It is not necessary
to have bypass surgery at 45 to postpone
an inevitable heart attack. It is not necessary
to burn your life’s savings on prescription
drugs to hide the pain over the last 20
years of your life. You can change all of
these things, but it will require changing
what you think of as manly.
It is your daily habits that determine
your future. Your decision to have a donut
for breakfast rather than a bowl of fresh
fruit. Your decision to have a burger and
fries for lunch rather than a salad. Your
decision to sit on the couch rather than
communicating with your children or spouse.
Your decision to sit around and down a six-pack
with the boys reminiscing of your past athletic
glories, rather than building an athletic
body.
I get very tired of hearing people, mostly
men say that they would rather die 10 years
sooner than give up meat or beer or any
of the other harmful products that have
somehow become associated with manhood.
It has clearly been shown that avoiding
meat, highly processed foods, and alcohol
will greatly reduce your chances of cancer,
heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood
pressure. In fact adopting a truly healthy
lifestyle can reverse nearly all of the
diseases that plague our nation today. Just
for the record, you aren’t giving up
10 years for these indulgences, it is more
like 20 or 30 years. Are you willing to
tell your family that you would trade 20-30
years with them so that you can continue
to have your burger and fries, your steak
and cold beer?
I have a different vision of manhood. I
think that a real man strives to be as healthy
as possible. He feeds his body what it needs
to be healthy, not what Madison Avenue tells
him he needs to be a man. He exercises to
stay lean and strong. He knows that without
the health and energy to truly experience
life he has truly fallen short of his responsibilities
as a man. He takes care of himself and does
not count on a man in a lab coming up with
some pill that will wipe away the years
of abuse.
A real man does not accept that it is natural
to put on 30 pounds after marriage. A real
man does not accept dying of a heart attack
at 60 years old leaving his wife to fend
for herself and never really knowing his
grandchildren. A real man is bigger than
the stereotypes that have been around for
generations and chooses his own path in
life.
I have a challenge for all the real men
out there. Stop continuing down a path that
will certainly lead to a slow painful death
at an early age. Rather than missing out
on the many great experiences that life
has to offer, take control of your life
and take back your health. Come to grips
with what it really means to be a man and
live everyday to give more to yourself,
your family, and your community. You cannot
succeed at any of this if you continue to
indulge in the symbols of manhood that have
lead to the early deaths of many of our
grandfathers, father, brother, and friends.
Be different, be a man.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart W. Rayburn is a Lifestyle Coach for
Vitality Health and Fitness. He has created
a program to help people to lose weight
and take control of their health. For more
information and to sign up for a free newsletter,
go to http://www.takebackyourhealth.org
or mailto:stu@takebackyourhealth.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|
