Many of us have heard of Confucius, we know that he was a Chinese philosopher who through his years of writing, observation and work in government created a philosophy of personal morality. This isn’t a political piece or a religious piece. As individuals with anxiety we can use wisdom of the past to help us in the present.
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” —Confucius
How many times have we been faced with an issue that looks like a mountain? We get overwhelmed and we fall into the pit of woe that is anxiety and mental health issues. Is one little saying going to help us? Maybe a little, maybe not at all.
When you have Anxiety, Mountains appear often.
That said at the end of the day events happen to us, mountains appear. We have to deal with them. The beauty of this wisdom is it illustrates literally and figuratively how to deal with a problem that becomes a mountain.
You have to start, and you work the problem one small step (stone) at a time. Look we all have obstacles that pop up in our lives and some of them are extreme. You can move that mountain, be calm, and be methodical… Take one step at a time, one stone at a time and in no time the mountain will be moved and you will be right back on your chosen path.
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This is going to be a quick post today. So in my “how to be a better man series” I offer advice to heterosexual men. I suppose the advice can be used by anyone really but I try not to speak into sexualities, genders, etc. that I do not have direct experience with. So please take it in the spirit in which it is offered.
So “Maybe it’s you” what does that mean? Simply put, if everywhere you got things end up smelling like shit for one reason or another, it’s time to check your shoes. You might actually be the issue here. If your relationships with females all end a certain way, or if your work situations always seem to devolve to the same bullet points you have to be honest with yourself.
If you treat a woman like a Queen, she should be treating you like a King
YOU are always present in these situations. The likelihood of the same outcomes happening over and over with unrelated parties because of THEIR choices is highly unlikely. If you have dated four females and each one of them end the same way I would ask you, did they know each other? If they did not then the common denominator is you.
Self-reflection, honesty and a strong effort into self-improvement is going to fix many of these situations. Just because “It’s you” doesn’t mean it cannot be fixed. You have to do the work to identify what exactly the problem is. If, as an example, you are dating and you have no desire to get married, but constantly date women who DO desire to get married, you have to fix that.
At the end of the day, the only thing you can control is yourself, and even that is a challenge at time. Keep working hard, Keep pushing yourself and remember to always give yourself grace. You are not perfect, none of us are but self-awareness and honesty are the pathways to being a better man.
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One of the hardest things to do when you are having a panic attack is to regain focus. There is a very simple trick you can do to trick your mind to focus. Focus = the ability to obtain rational thought and in an bout of anxiety rational thought is the path back. Basically, you just observe your surroundings and start describing things—in your head—in increasing detail.
For example:
There’s a chair.
It has four legs.
The legs are wooden.
The cushion is embroidered.
The embroidery is blue and white.
It has white stitching.
This technique requires you to focus which is one of the hardest -tricks- to pull off when you have an anxiety attack. By describing things in increasing detail makes you focus on the item you are describing. For many of us anxiety is accompanied by invasive thoughts that are the real culprit to our emotional response. Its not the fender bender that rattles you, its all the thoughts that come flooding in once it happens. (to use a bad example )
Anxiety puts everything out of place
I haven’t used this trick, but to be honest I have had a good couple of months. Maybe this sounds silly but give it a shot. The next time you are being invaded by anxiety pick something and start describing in increasing detail. Say it out loud, if you need to but the point of this blog is to be a source of information on anxiety and anxiety relief.
Maybe this will be the tool that helps you deal with the next situation. Really isn’t that the whole point? One day at a time, one episode at a time just living with and coping with our anxiety issues. Everyone has a different threshold of course; my anxiety is different then yours. This might not work for you, it might not work for me but its one more thing in our tool box we can try.
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I am a gamer. As a proud card carrying member of Generation X I can tell you that in 1982 I got an Atari 2600. I actually got a “sears” version, back then Atari sold directly to Sears (who was still a major, if not the biggest retailer in the country) my FAVORITE uncle got it for me, LOL. I’ve been hooked ever since. Back then you had to hook it up to the TV, graphics were horrible by todays standard but god was it fun.
I’ve gone through many iterations of games and generations of gaming consoles in the last 40 years. I’ve been gaming probably longer than many of you have been alive LOL. I’ve recently started playing some of my older games again. This is my hobby of course, I work full time, I have a family I have a normal life. Hobbies allow you to disengage from reality, more over it allows you to escape from things you don’t necessarily enjoy doing.
As an example do you hate your job? Are you having a stressful situation with your family? Hobbies are a refuge, and allow you something you enjoy that’s exclusive to you. Sure you can share your hobby with other people but having something that is YOURS is very important for your mental health. It’s almost like a safe space, it’s a place you go that you exist as you like. At least that’s how it is in video games, and I truly appreciate that aspect of it.
Is it foolish to play video games?
Your hobby can be anything, cars, golf, pets, writing, video games. In the end though it’s a great way to have something that is just for you, that you can be selfish about and not share if you don’t want to. Its indulgent and people in your life may find it threatening to their relationship with you that you have something personal that doesn’t include them. It’s important to make time for everyone in your life and to make sure they don’t feel ignored.
However, it’s just as important to make sure that you make time for your hobbies. This will make you a better overall person and far more relaxed and happy. Remember to not over indulge and to be clear with the people in your life what your hobby is and what you are doing. As an example, I game wed evenings 8-10 and Friday night 9PM – to whenever I go to bed. My wife and kids know I do this, and it doesn’t create an issue for us. I game with my son from time to time actually, LOL.
The point is, find something you like for you. Be selfish, but don’t let it consume you. Anxiety sucks but we can fight back. Creating spaces in your life that give you time to do things that you enjoy is a great way to combat persistent anxiety. Remember this is your little thing, your corner of the world, your personal space. It can be anything you want, it’s a hobby something you are interested in and want to pursue and that gives you a sense of accomplishment and happiness.
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The answer is yes you can, but with caveats. As men age the master hormone Testosterone decreases. Now the caveat here is your starting point. Its universally accepted that testosterone drops as you age but there is no universally accepted starting point there is a range. So if you start at the lower range through your adult life it’s going to be that much harder when you hit your 50’s.
Disclaimer: Make sure you work closely with your health care provider and be tested regularly to ensure you make the best choices for your particular situation. The opinions expressed in this blog worked for me, they may not work for you.
The bottom line is, as a man you need testosterone to build muscle mass. The older you get the less you produce naturally so you will need to supplement to obtain similar results to when you were younger. The problem here is increased testosterone levels the older you get increases your risk of heart disease. So the next caveat, you can gain muscle mass in your 50’s but not at the same rate you did in earlier periods of your life.
While there isn’t much science on sustaining high level of testosterone for decades, we know that younger individuals have better health outcomes as their bodies haven’t been subjected to poor dietary choices for as long. That’s a logical conclusion, again there aren’t a lot of studies here supporting this but if your testosterone level was 850 at 21, its harder and riskier for you to maintain that 850 testosterones at 31,41,51,61.
Hormone Replacement Therapy might be an option.
What you should be doing is having a blood work up on your endocrine system once you hit 40 years old. They should be testing for a lot of things, (thyroid, adrenal, vitamin D) and your testosterone levels. When you get the test results you should be comparing your number to averages for people in your age group. There are numerous sources online that will give you a range, generally men from 19-49 have a range of 249-836, over 50 193-749.
We have to be careful here because there are people OVER the high end of the range. There are always outliers and the younger you are the more likely you could be over and sustain it, but as you age, if you remain in that higher range your risk of heart disease magnifies. So where we want to be is 85% of the high end range over 50, at or around 650. At that % (this can fluxuate) you should be able to gain muscle mass in your 50’s.
You aren’t going to pack on 20 pounds of muscle in 6 months, but 5 or more in a year? Yes, its possible. Now this is based on my experience and having talked to my doctor and having blood work done regularly. None of this should be taken lightly and you should be working with your doctor regularly (every 3-6 months) to determine if you are healthy and if you need to adjust your testosterone levels.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to work with your doctor on your specific needs as you age. You should be increasing your interactions with your doctor’s office and specifically your blood work even if it means you have to pay out of pocket. This isn’t something you can just figure out on your own. Work with a medical professional, heed their advice but keep close tabs on your testosterone levels.
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So another post in my better man series, this one is for all the guys that are in a mid-term relationship (I say between 6 months to 2 years). You are committed to one another as exclusive (most likely) and are basically figuring out if this is going to be a long term play. Before I map out this test for you a quick disclaimer: My how to be a better man posts are meant for heterosexual men. This may or may not work for other sexualities, I don’t know. This isn’t meant to offend, it’s my opinion and hopefully it helps men navigate the trials of improving themselves.
So you have been together just over a year your GF is great you are in love and so is she. The “Test” is a rhetorical question but her actions after the question is posed is what is going to tip you off on where you really stand with this woman. At some point she is going to want to go out with her girlfriends, to a club, a show, some public place. No problem that’s fine you aren’t married but ask her this question.
“Would you be okay if your long term boyfriend went out with a group of friends, and that night women, some better looking than you bought him drinks, flirted with him and were ready to have sex with him even if he told them he was in a long term committed relationship?”
When she goes out with the girl’s how is does she look?
Now a smart woman is going to say no of course not. We know when groups of women go out, men flirt, buy them drinks etc. and we know why. Women like the attention, I get it and it doesn’t mean they are cheaters but do they ever imagine if the roles were reversed how they would feel?
Now the test: Did she go out with her friends anyway after you gave her that scenario? Did she invite you to go with them? If she went out anyway and didn’t invite you? That’s a red flag bud, the night she is out, ask yourself the test question and insert GF, instead of BF. How you feeling? If she went out anyway, I would encourage you to take a hard look at behaviors and decide very quickly if she is your long term play.
I’m not saying she is cheating, I’m not saying she is a bad person, I’m not saying you are a simp, but again, how you feeling?
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So a quick post today. As most of you know I have anxiety, like many of you, and millions of people all over the world. Now unlike many of you I am in my 50’s and I have been living with Anxiety in some form for decades. So what is it like to have anxiety issues in your 50’s and dealing with them for years?
Let me say that age enables you to have experience and experience breeds wisdom. It makes dealing with Anxiety easier so that’s the good news here. The older you get, the longer you live with this issue the better equipped you become in dealing with it. Now things can still get bad don’t get me wrong, but the feelings of isolation and shame decrease as you begin to realize more and more that many people have this problem, it’s not just you.
That’s the good news, the bad news is you have more time to reflect on, which for me has always been the problem. I suffer from intrusive thoughts. I can be sitting in the car and suddenly I remember something that happened in 1983 that was a negative situation. The problem with intrusive thoughts is you assume the emotional reactions you had at the time and then start applying them to your current situation.
Pick whatever name you want, Anxiety at any age sucks
The older you get the more situations you have that you can reflect on. Now everyone does this to a degree but for me anyway it can be debilitating. I can’t get out of the thought or the feeling, it will replay itself over and over until I can expel it. Like a song you can get out of your head. It flavors everything I am doing and affects all of those around me. Now this is contradictory to the first part of the post isn’t it?
“Karac you said the older you get the less shame and isolation you feel” yes that’s true, but the frequency increases and that’s the problem. Literally daily I have an issue like this, and the factors that contribute to its intensity can be anything from lack of sleep, stress at work or family issues. So the older you get the easier it gets to deal with the issue, but the issue becomes more frequent.
At least that’s what is happening to me. I could take more medication but I basically just push through. Don’t get me wrong I have more good days then bad but when you have anxiety, you are most likely going to be dealing with it for decades. So all my Gen Z and Millennial friends out there, your mental health is a life long journey. The first critical step is recognizing your specific issue and understanding what your triggers are and why they are happening.
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Hello readers! Once again we have another post in my “Better man” series. This series is targeted toward heterosexual men. This advice can be employed by anyone really but when I write in this vein I write about what I know. I can’t speak to the needs of other sexualities or identities because I don’t live that. So that disclaimer out of the way being a better man is subjective of course. The goal in with these posts is to give men perspective on things they could do to improve.
If you don’t feel you need to improve of course this isn’t applicable. So a new year, let’s get 3 things together that you can do now that are going to feed you positive outcomes through 2023
Relationship Clarity: It’s time to figure out who your ride or die people are. I’m not talking about immediate family like mom, dad, siblings, I’m talking about friends. I don’t care what gender they are, or if they are drinking pals, fuck buddies, work friends it doesn’t matter. You need to figure out who the main players are in your life outside of your immediate family and start investing the most precious commodity in the world into them, your time. Figure out the relationship, what do you want out of it? Is it healthy? Do they feel the same way about you?
Commit to Sleep: Now this could go off on a fitness tangent but I’m not going to do that. I think you should be working out of course but setting fitness goals at the beginning of the year is a trap. However, committing to sleep will enhance literally everything in your life. You have to get the right amount of sleep. You should be targeting 7 hours a night, if you can get more great but 7 hours should be your goal. You need to commit to this so if that means Sun-thurs, lights out at 11PM, do it. I can’t begin to tell you all the benefits of good sleep and the positive outcomes it will bring, but trust me on this one.
Plan and adventure: Yes, in 2023 you should go on an adventure. What I mean by this is, creating an outcome that makes you go to an unfamiliar situation but safe one. Maybe on July 4th you get on a plane and go to Idaho. Maybe you don’t like to swim? Plan a cruise. Do something to challenge yourself outside of your current comfort environment. Change the venue, do something odd. Maybe wear a suit to Mc Donald’s and eat a meal there? I don’t care what it is but do something out of the ordinary for you, it might open up a door for you that you never would have seen had you not done so.
There are tons more things you can do this year to work on self-improvement. I will bring more to you as the year progresses. Remember, as a heterosexual man you have to become self-sufficient and strong. There are very few resources for you, in the social order you are no longer top of the food chain. Work on yourself, and spend less time thinking about other people and worrying about their outcomes. A strong, healthy, vibrant you = the people around you flourish.
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What changed exactly from 12.31.22 to 1.1.23? Not a whole hell of a lot really. Change happens when you commit to it, and change is one of those romantized notions that people cling to in the hopes of a better outcome. New leaders, new seasons, new year’s, new clothes, new jobs on and on.
How do you feel? I’m betting you feel pretty close to the same as you did in 2022. I’m not chastising you here I am trying to knock the steam out of a potential failure. So many people pin their hopes on a “new year” a “resolution” and it rarely works out. Why is that? Because the changes you seek are often desired to have immediacy. Simply put, you want big changes as fast as possible and change doesn’t work that way.
What’s going to make 2023 better for you? Have you identified that yet? Changing your life requires momentum and momentum is achieved often by small incremental steps not huge leaps. Sure some people can make massive strides fast and maybe you are one of those people I don’t know. What’s an example, okay let’s try this.
I once resolved to quit coffee…. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. Ya no.
You want to lose 40 pounds, you make large changes in your diet exercise, you go all in. in a month you are exhausted, you are binging food and it’s just “one cheat day” before you know it its march and the 40-pound goal is gone. OR you could change one part of your diet. “I am no longer going to drink soda” now which do you think will be more successful?
You may stray once and while and chug a soda, but it’s a far easier goal to attain then the mountain you wanted to climb by losing 40. Here is the point. Small Incremental changes lead to long term positive outcomes. By creating large resolutions, we place ourselves in a position to not succeed. I didn’t say fail because effort is a success. Smaller more attainable goals build momentum and create the conditions by which you can parlay them into larger success. Here are 5 small resolutions to strive for instead of one huge one.
Eat less sugar
Save $20 a week
Turn the screens off at 10:30 PM
Take 3000 steps a day
Volunteer once a month
Small changes provide a great chance for successful outcomes. This in turn provides a great chance to parlay those successes into smaller changes, medium changes or eventually into large life altering changes. A new year is a great time to resolve to do better. Put yourself in a position to succeed in 2023 by making a few small changes first.
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So this is another post in my “better man series” these posts are meant for heterosexual men who are looking for wisdom. They may or may not be applicable to you, these are not meant to be offensive anyway. So that out of the way, behaviors are a window into the future. If you see someone who is chronically late, the chances are 3 years from now they will be chronically late… You get the point.
So for men this is paramount to your happiness if you chose to be in a committed relationship with a woman. This is true for females too, don’t get me wrong here it works both ways. I can’t speak to how females perceive this issue beyond my experience living with them. For men though, here is the point: If you commit to a woman, you commit to her as is. You see there is the old notion that women try to “change men” maybe it’s true maybe it isn’t.
The good news is its 2022 and the game has changed dramatically. Equality? You got it. Women pursue men, women propose, women pay, women do lots of things that were traditionally slotted in the “male role” so as things balance out, you shouldn’t adopt a “I can change this later” attitude. Now there may be habits your chosen one has that annoy you but you can live with. I will give you an example. I have been married for nearly 25 years, my wife sometimes talks to me as she is brushing her teeth. I hate that, but I put up with it because she has been doing it forever.
If you tell the truth, you don’t need to take a pill.
I chose her, and when I did I took all the good and the bad. So for you my young male friend you are now going to have to have a very serious internal discussion with yourself. If you chose to get serious with a woman and be in a committed relationship you have to be honest with yourself about her habits and if any of them bother you. This can be silly small things (like mine) or they can be serious issues (she talks over you sometimes).
Whatever it is YOU have to be clear about it in your own mind and be completely blunt with yourself. Can you live with this? Will it get better? Here is the thing, if you do provide yourself with this clarity and you still chose to go forward into a committed relationship you have placed her in a position where she can’t win. Even if you talk to her about “annoying habit A” you are still choosing her, and that tells her that it is safe for her to invest in you emotionally.
Don’t do it to her, and don’t do it to yourself unless you are 100% certain those habits are deal breakers. It’s one of the small things many men do when entering a committed relationship, they tell themselves “I will put up with this because this other thing is great”. 2 years later, you are full of resentment and she wants an engagement ring. You’ve now created a situation where you will be in misery if you go forward or you will have a huge blow out when you DON’T get her the ring.
All because you weren’t able to be honest with yourself, and clear with her about behaviors that bother you. Its 2022, women deserve the truth, they are not princesses anymore to be rescued and protected and you are no white knight. Want a long term successful relationship? Identify behaviors that bother you and either chose to own them, or chose someone else.
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