One of the books I’m reading is Man Enough by Justin Baldoni (Affiliate link) and in the book he talks about the social dynamics around men and how men put on a performance around being right, because of the pressure they feel around being right. What really fascinated me is that he shared an insight that men often put on this performance, not so much because of women, but because they feel like they have to be right in front of other men. He also shared another point, which is that men also are hard on themselves when they don’t seem to have a direction they are going in with their lives.
I considered both points that he made and I found myself agreeing with him. I have no problem admitted I’m wrong about a given topic and in fact I’m more careful about what I say now because over the years I’ve learned how little I know and how much I hope to learn. And I’ll acknowledge that the performance a man puts on can still be done with all people in mind, but there is this tendency that we men have to measure ourselves against each other while simultaneously seeking reassurance that we’re enough from each other.
It’s a game that doesn’t serve anyone.
And I see it as well with the tendency to need a direction. At the job I’m leaving the manager I’ve worked with his has pushed his vision onto all of his workers and tried to get us to conform to his direction. He tells us he always want us to be growing, without considering that constant growth leads to cancer and that sometimes what we really need is to just be in the role we’re in and take measurement of what its getting us. The constant grind of needing to have a direction, when its provided by someone else, is exhausting.
We men can be and often are wrong and that doesn’t make us flawed. It makes us human and allows us to step down from the pedestal we’ve been put on that says we have to be right, successful and have everything figured out. We don’t have to have anything figured out and when we let go of the performance and step out of the shell game, we might just listen better and connect more meaningfully with everyone around us because we no longer have to take up space and show that we’ve got it all figured out.
Right now I have a sense of purpose and meaning and its providing a few directions to go in, but I can also stop and take in the sights and let go of direction, of the push to be somewhere doing something. I can just be with myself and consider what that really means for me. And instead of saying something about a topic I don’t know much about, I can listen and take in what others are sharing. I can learn and let go of the need to appear a certain way.
I can be a man without all the answers or solutions, or anything else. I can be.
