Facing Reality and Becoming a Man

[vlf445]

I'm posting in the mature man section because I'm looking for advice from those who have some years of widsom on me. I'm a 21 year old senior in college, graduating this upcoming May. But if anyone has any advice on these thoughts I'm having, please pass them along.



I still feel completely unprepared to brave the world alone. I know I’m still young and I have a lot to learn, but I really think this is the root of many of my problems (both in life in generally, and with women). I’m unable to face the fact that in this life, we are in many ways alone. People act in their own interests, and it is completely up to me to make something of myself.

I was reading an old post by Desdinova and saw him mention his son, and I started imagining that I was a single father, and that thought scared me senseless. I would have NO IDEA what to do; no idea how to support us, no idea what I would want out of life, no idea who I would want my son to become, and no idea how to raise him without needing validation from outside sources telling me I was doing things “correctly”. Why do I constantly need outside validation? I’m ****ing sick of it. It’s like some sickness that I keep hoping will go away. I try the things I‘ve read in the dj bible and on other websites to gain confidence in myself, but I always fall back into the same thinking patterns when I get knocked down even slightly.

As I continued to read Des’s post, it really occurred to me how I envy the way he handles those situations which for me would seem life-ending. (I’m not trying to blow up your skirt man, I just wanted to finally get these thoughts down and your post sparked em again). As I keep delving further into myself to see where my insecurities lie, I keep finding a few things:

1) I’m terrified that I’m essentially alone in life, and that no one will really care for me except me. The only real exception here is my parents, but they won’t be here forever. Maybe I’m terrified because I know that I would not be able to take care of myself.

2)I need constant validation that I’m doing things “the right way”, whatever that even is. I don’t want to screw up; essentially, I’m terrified to fail.

3)I have a deep fear of losing control, especially in social situations. I have tried questioning literally everything about myself to see why it is I don’t want to lose control of my actions in front of others, and I really can’t seem to figure it out. This makes me paranoid that I’m subconsciously hiding something from myself.

I don’t know why I can’t seem to face the facts. Instead I just keep on cruising through life in the same way because I’m in a little isolated bubble called college, where my parents support me and I have no real responsibilities.

Has anyone ever felt like this? This is the first time I’ve really articulated what I have been feeling this past year or so, and I just don’t know where to go from here.

 

[sodbuster]

You can't worry about making mistakes... the only people who never make them are the ones that never DO anything. Hoping you aren't content to hide away in a "safe" life where nothing ever goes wrong[we've all seen how safe the government and economy has made everything in the job market]

As far as the rest of it.... just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep learning,keep moving forward,keep challenging yourself[when you are scared,you are alive(every business man who isn't,hasn't thought about problems that could end his business-John Corzine comes to mind)]

 

[Huffman]

You're worried that you might not deal with things "correctly"? You can never do things correctly, only in the manner which you THINK is correct.

How do you think awesome people became awesome? How did skilled people become skilled? Well either they succeeded right away, or they failed many times until they learned it.

Suppose you must deal with a difficult situation, and you don't have a clue. What do you do? No matter what you decide, there are 3 outcomes:
1. You make the right decision. Result: Success, and experience
2. You make the wrong decision. Result: Failure, but experience
3. You don't decide because you're afraid of the wrong one. Result: Failure, no experience

So the moral is: try to beat the fear of decisions, no matter what you decide is better than running away. Pracice making decisions. Practice dealing with situations. You must be serious in serious situations, but you can practice decision-making in easy situations, every day in your life.

 

[lifeislearning]

Welcome to the game of life! We can never be completely sure what we are doing is right, completely satisfying, or completely successful. Life is not a journey as our ideal selves, but rather TOWARD our ideal selves and that journey is never finished.

You probably will not get the advice you want from anybody who knows better, but rest assured we all have similar fears, thoughts, and concerns. My dad is 55, a great man and role model, and he often tells me he is not sure what he wants to be when he grows up . In the next year we will both be launching independent businesses and we share the same doubt, anxiety, and fear of uncontrollable forces.

These will never go away! To brave the challenges of life be honest about these fears, compare your life now with what you want it to be, and do your best to make it that way. It will be a struggle almost every day till you die. Good luck!

 

[Jitterbug]

You're more prepared than you think. You're in America, it's easy to survive there. Food is cheap & plenty, clean water is everywhere, there's even electricity, and nobody is trying to hunt you down. You're a college kid with no dependent. Nobody will starve or die because you make a wrong decision. If you can, after college, travel to a poor part of the world to have a look at life for billions of other people. You'll gain a healthy perspective on life.

Your fragile validation-seeking self is a product of the Western self-esteem movement and overprotective parenting. Now you know why you're like that. In time, you'll achieve real, meaningful things on your own and you'll grow out of that pathetic former self.

Now, go out and fail, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again.

P.S: take up a strength sport like lifting, it'll teach you the right mentality.

 

[Atom Smasher]

You're not supposed to be posting in here, young fella, but I'm letting you stay because you wisely sought the advice of the older guys who have gone before you and have shown proper respect to your elders. That in itself is an indicator of character.

Good advice has already been given, and Jitterbug especially has hit the nail on the head.

He is precisely right regarding the self-esteem movement. There are other societal fabrications that are affecting you. You have been (falsely) taught that you should succeed immediately at anything you try. If you don't, then you must be a failure. You must not have "what it takes".

This is pure nonsense. Almost any successful man will tell you that he had numerous "failures" on his way to success. As a matter of fact, as we get older we discover that the road to success is literally paved with "failed" attempts.

Failure is nothing more than one attempt that didn't yield the desired or expected result, and is an indicator for correction for the next attempt, and nothing more. Failure is a calbrator, a gauge.

Failure is a feedback mechanism. It tells you that you are alive and in the game. Have you ever watched a baby learning to walk? It tries again and again, day after day and week after week. Each and every attempt during those weeks ends in an apparent "failure" as he falls down. Does he allow that to paralyze him? Does he sit around and analyze and wonder why he can't do it when so many other babies can? No, he just tries to get up again and he falls again. And on it goes.

But when he intuits (but could never verbalize, of course) is that each failed attempt brings him a tny bit closer to his goal. Each time he gets up, his muscles become just a tiny bit stronger. And his balance becomes an imperceptable amount better. Those improvments could never be measured by mankind as they are so infinitesimaly small, but they are there nonetheless.

Before he knows it, critical mass occurs and his muscles are strong enough and his balance good enough to walk. He literally failed his way to success. The thought of giving up never even entered his head.

I know this story is a little played out these days but it bears pondering once in a while. I advise you to embrace failure. Let it be the springboard that propels you to success. Failure is only a feeling, an opinion on your outcome. Take a more detached approach and EXPECT to fail many times before succeeding. Every once in a while you will succeed immediately, but those times are the rare exceptions and the norm is to fail, adjust, attempt again, fail, adjust, and attempt again, on and on until victory is attained.

Instant success and being good at everything on first attempt is Hollywood and television nonsense. It is not real but we grow up thinking that it is.

Decide not to anything the "right" way. Instead, decide to attempt everything in the only way that you can at this present moment (which WILL be imperfect).

Every father thinks he is unequal to the task. That fear is universal. But he somehow gets through, learning by doing and correcting himself as he goes. A while ago I stopped demanding perfection out of myself and accepted that anything I work on will be imperfect and is in fact the best I can do at the time. I trust that every time I attempt something with less than stellar results, my brain and my body have learned something new and I am not quite the same person I was when I started the task. I'm a little bit smarter and a little bit more skilled, even if I can't see it visibly. I therefore know that my last attempt, then, was not a failure at all, but rather a NECESSARY rung on the ladder to my inevitable success.

Embrace imperfection and you will feel a freedom that you can't imagine. The paradox is that once you do, you will find yourself succeeding at ever-increasing rates of speed.

Be as kind to yourself as you would be to someone you were observing struggling to succeed at something. You would see that they will eventually make it if they keep trying, right? And you would encourage them. Well, you can be your own encourager when you allow yourself to be imperfect, just like you would allow others to be imperfect. The success is not the destination, it is in the trying.

Don't listen to the media lies. Success in ANYTHING is born of repeated, sustained attempts. Some might call those attempts "failures", but I call them golden rungs on the golden ladder to my success.

Life is not about doing everything "right" like in the movies. The man who tries again and again, learning through the process, is sure to succeed at anything he puts his mind to. Make failure your friend, because next to work, failure is your very best friend. Embrace failure as your friend and he will gladly bend over and boost you up to your next level. Fear him and he will mock you.

You might like this post I made a while back about "The Magic Story".

 

[vlf445]

Thank you all for the responses. I appreciate them more than you know.

 

[Alex DeLarge]

Take a look at the successful people in this world that seem they did everything "correctly".. Reality is, they fvcked up more times than they can count before they got there. So what drove them there?

A dream. Passion. Determination. And most importantly...

They are all optimists.

If you keep telling yourself "I cannot achieve that" then you can't. Because through telling yourself you cannot achieve, you will not even attempt to try your hardest. It's like the same idea in the pickup world as saying "I can't get that girl.. She's really hot and im not that good looking."

Well I used to think this crap before.. Then I started reading up on inner game and other self-improvement material and began to apply it. It's all mind over matter.

You think, therefore you are. If you think you're a winner, then you're a winner. If you think you're a loser, then you're a loser. You can assess positivity and growth out of anything.

 

[metoo]

why do you need anyone to care for you? What makes you WORTH caring for? Get a black belt, dude, it will help your confidence tremendously. Also, teaching karate is like being the lead singer for a good rock band, women all dig you! I kid you NOT, guys! The best teachers are the guys who are almost black belts, you can get into small, 3-4 people classes (like you want) in somebody's basement or garage, for $10 an hour and if you are already fairly fit and limber, and if he's worth a hoot as an instructor, you will have real fighting ability in 200 hours, 300 at the most. You will be doing 1 legged squats, without holding onto anything, 1 armed pushups, with either arm, running the mile in 6 minutes or less, have a 12 sec or less 100 yd dash time.

 

[Powerofmindset]

double post

 

[Powerofmindset]

Huge bump on this. I'm going through the same thing myself but I'm 25. I never knew what is wrong with me although I was trying to find the right path. Now I understand and I hope other people in this boat will understand it as well.

 

[btownbuck2012]

First of all, I'd just like to say that I'm in awe of posters such as AtomSmasher. His insight and advice is invaluable to younger guys like myself and the OP. If anyone ever questions whether or not Sosuave has gone to hell, I'll just refer them to that post. Same thing goes for Jitterbug. Thank you guys for sticking around here.

OP,

You just have to move forward man. It's going to be scary at times. That's life. I'm in your same situation. I'll be graduating college this May as well. I don't know what I'm going to do yet or where I'm going to go, but I'm going to keep moving forward

Not only that, but I'm going to move forward while realizing that trouble and failure is going to come along my way at some point down the road. It has in the past and will happen again. However, I'm not going to let that stop me from moving forward. Life can be uncertain man. But you've gotta have the guts to believe that you'll be able to handle it. You've got to believe that you have what it takes, inside of you, to achieve your goals in life.

Will it be easy? nah. Will it be hard sometimes? Of course. But should you let it stop you from moving forward with confidence? HELL NO

I’m unable to face the fact that in this life, we are in many ways alone. People act in their own interests, and it is completely up to me to make something of myself.

One last thing. Notice what I've highlighted in bold. This shouldn't scare you. It is up to YOU to make something of yourself in this lifetime, and if you end up a failure in life it is no-one's fault except your own. Failure is not permanent. Your destiny is in your hands, and if you believe you CAN, than YOU WILL.


Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- Ernest Henley

 

[metoo]

Woman want a man they can be proud of, that they can trust,not only not to run around on them, or drop them at some point, but to protect them and support them, when(since all of them WANT it) they become mothers. Raising a kid is a humungous task for a single person, having a kid (by some guy who is no longer in the picture for her) drastically reduces a woman's chances of getting a good man. So she wants a man who will be a good father to her kids. That may only be a subconsious part of her evaluation of men when she is younger, but as she gets older, it becomes a lot more of a conscious choice.

 

[Domo_Arigatoo]

Smoke weed

 

[vlf445]

Smoke weed

I wrote this post while I was high actually. Smoking weed used to make me relax and escape life, now it makes me think about myself and where I am headed in life, for better or worse.

Also, thanks for the thoughtful post AtomSmasher, especially the "Magic Story". It really did have a profound effect on me. I'm planning on reading the second half of that once a week at least as I find myself drifting into my old thought patterns fairly often

 

[backbreaker]

you are so far ahead of your peers it's not even funny. you are going to be okay man.

the thing is, you just got to get out there and start living. don't be afraid to **** up beucase,k you will **** up and you wil do so alot. but you will learn from the **** ups and you will start ****ing up less and less. you will push yourself to become better, more resourceful, more self reliant.


PS- women find a self reliant confident man virtually irresistible.

 

[metoo]

join the military instead.

make sure, tho, that it's AirForce or Navy, so you need not sweat (much) about combat. Get some experience with how women in 3rd world countries view you and you will never again put up with any bs at all from US b**ches.

 

[vlf445]

make sure, tho, that it's AirForce or Navy, so you need not sweat (much) about combat. Get some experience with how women in 3rd world countries view you and you will never again put up with any bs at all from US b**ches.

I have strongly considered the military before, becuase I thought it might "man me up". I never ended making that choice, but I'm keeping the option in my back pocket just in case. As of now I'm just getting through school, working an internship a few days a week, and wondering what my future holds. I've just got to find something I'll be happy doing once I graduate, because the 9-5 deskjob path that I'm on doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun so far.

Once again, thanks for all the supportive replies. They're incredibly helpful.

Edit: been re-reaing the replies. Regarding Jitterbug's post and the "western self esteem movement" and overprotective parenting, I think you hit the nail right on the head. My self esteem (and confidence) is fragile and is easily shattered by others, and now I'm wondering if what I've thought was normal parenting was, indeed, overprotective.

 

[Tr9n]

I have literally nothing to contribute to this thread, other than the fact that I think this is one of the best threads on this site. I am also in college and struggling with many of the same things. Thanks guys!