Being a good man isn’t easy. There’s a large outcry by the women in the world for good men, and although there are issues on both sides of the genders, the fact remains that men are having a tough time being good men.
Men have become weaker, and you see the results in homes, politics, and the workplace. As men get worse, the world follows suit, and the signs of this problem are abundant. It’s no secret that the world needs more good men out there to fix problems and take care of people.
Now, I’m not going to preach entirely about what is making men weak nor is this intended to bash on weak men. No, I’m going to talk about a way to be a good man, and I’m going to leave the preaching to my favorite pastor, Joby Martin from the Church of Eleven22. I heard Pastor Martin say something the other day that his father told him when he was a young man, which is a statement that I think every man needs to hear.
“Men are like flatbed trucks; they drive straighter with a heavy load.”
-Pastor Joby Martin
Men need responsibility to be good men. There are many reasons for that. One is because having important responsibilities keeps you accountable. You know when you’re not being a good man when you’re very obviously failing at your responsibilities, and the only way to correct that problem is to be a man of good character and admit you are in the wrong and then take action to correct it.
When men don’t have anything important to keep themselves in check for, nothing good happens. When men are accountable to something greater than themselves, their character improves. A good character is developed by taking on responsibility for something more important than your own selfish desires and then doing what needs to be done to fulfill that obligation.
If I didn’t have a wife and kids that I was responsible for, then I’d probably be like most other men around my age that are single who are just playing video games and indulging in whatever selfish or degenerate activities they want to because nothing is holding them accountable to a higher standard.
When a flatbed truck has no load, it’s more susceptible to erratic movements and being bounced around by bumps on the road. The flatbed truck with no load is less stable and more likely to drive off the road when the going gets rough. It’s the same concept when it comes to men.
The character of men is not forged in flames that don’t burn hot. Men need to do hard things. Men need purpose and direction to keep them on the straight and narrow path. Think of the great men you personally know, or of the great men in history. Some were responsible for nations, and the ones that handled that responsibility well and didn’t compromise their own character while doing so are the ones we admire the most.
The men who have no responsibility are the ones that find themselves in trouble. They drink and party and waste their time on pointless things. Men with little responsibility lead mediocre lives and rarely amount to much because there was no great responsibility to inspire greatness out of them.
Why not drink your life away when the most important thing in your life is to wake up and go to a mediocre job that only demands the bare minimum effort? Why not go to the bars and spend all your money on booze when the only person you’re responsible for is yourself?
Why not live like a slob when the only person who is going to see that you live like a filthy animal is you? Why not get into degenerate activities when you have nothing more important to live for than your own selfish desires? And why not play video games for hours on end everyday when nothing more important is inspiring you to get up?
Men have a lot of energy and untamed aggression in them that needs to go somewhere, and when that energy is purposefully directed and channeled into something more important than themselves, everyone benefits.
The problem is that a lot of men are afraid to take on responsibility. They are afraid to fall short of the mark and to be exposed to the world as not enough, and unfortunately, sometimes that is going to happen. But you only ever stay there if you accept defeat.
Nobody is perfect when it comes to handling responsibilities, but what responsibility does is that it forges a better character, and the ones who bare it with honor only ever come out of it a better person. The fire that forges better men is the heat and pressure of great responsibility.
One of the reasons I find that men fear responsibility is because that they lack discipline. They fear that when they take on responsibility that they will fail to meet the mark because they lack the discipline to do what must be done to meet their obligations.
The ironic thing is that responsibility and discipline go hand in hand, and to develop discipline, one must accept responsibility for something that will require more of them then they are usually willing to give.
That’s because doing what you are willing to do doesn’t require any discipline. Discipline is developed by doing things you don’t want to do, and by doing things that are difficult. And being responsible for something more important than yourself gives you more motivation for discipline than only being responsible for yourself.
For example, if we are talking about financial discipline, it is far easier for the man who is responsible for a family to be financially disciplined than it is for the single man who lives alone or who lives with his parents. The single man can spend money on basically whatever he wants, with little to no repercussions except to his essential financial obligations.
The man who is responsible for a family has to be very disciplined with his finances because he has multiple people relying on him to make good choices with his finances to provide a certain quality of life.
The family man can’t spend money on whatever he wants, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want things. Sometimes the family man has to sacrifice his own desires to be disciplined with his money so his family can have what they need and what they want.
It’s not always as fun to be a family man and be responsible for other people, but if done correctly, it is more fulfilling, and it is a sure way to develop a better character. It’s not easy to be responsible for kids and to raise them right, but if you do, you become a better man and you will feel more fulfilled by the fruits of your labor when you see how it benefited the ones you love.
It’s not easy to be accountable to a wife and a family, but if you admit to your mistakes and do what must be done to fix them, then you will undoubtedly be a better man for it. You can’t be a weak man in your family unless you are willing to let your family life be a total dumpster fire.
You can’t be a bad father unless you are willing to let your kids become horrible people, and if you do, then you’ll be suffering more than you would’ve if you had just enforced discipline before things got out of hand when they were kids.
Handle your responsibilities to the best of your ability. Don’t take on responsibility and then half-ass your efforts or else your life will undoubtedly become worse because you will fail to properly handle your obligations.
When you perform to the best of your ability, it brings out the best qualities of your character. The only solution then is to be better, or go down with a sinking ship, and being the captain, the blame or credit for your failures and successes fall on you alone.
Responsibility can either give you the nudges to be better, or it can force you, and by the time you have to be forced, you have suffered more letting it go south and correcting it than you would’ve suffered just to do things right in the first place. Either way, as men we need responsibility to grow and develop, and the outcome is dependent on our attitudes and how we handle it.
If you want to be a good man, then take on a heavier load. You will drive straighter and grow into a man of strong character, and everyone around a good man benefits from his influence.
Like what you read? Subscribe to get the latest content!
Support the Eclectic Method and get cool stickers in return! Click the banner or the link below to shop on the Eclectic Method store at stickermule.com and get a $10 credit! Search @theeclecticmethod and browse for unique designs and artwork created by the author.
https://www.stickermule.com/theeclecticmethod
Related Content:
The Eclectic Method 