Today's message comes from the Renewed Man Boot Camp. Renewed Man is a systematic teaching and coaching series designed to help men grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually ... developing the essential character quality of "self-mastery." Even though this community is created for men, the principles are universal -- women will benefit from these insights
as well.
We build this teaching around 12 Keys, and this week, we're focusing on Key 10:
Purpose. Here's how we put it:
10. Purpose - We take steps to add joy and meaning to our
lives. We realize that sexual self-mastery is not just subtraction, it involves addition -- a vision for what we want in our lives, and the mission we feel called to fulfill.
Here's one of the daily messages from this week's teaching series. I hope this will help you:
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“Before I started school striking I had no
energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.” - Greta Thunberg
Whatever you think of her or her politics, climate activist Greta Thunberg's experience illustrates an important principle for all of us:
For our lives to flourish, we need something significant and meaningful to be a part of.
Listen to these words from Yale professor Paul Bloom's recent article in "The Guardian."
This was the message of one of the 20th century's most important thinkers: Viktor Frankl. In his early years as a psychiatrist in Vienna, in the 1930s, Frankl studied depression and suicide.
During that period, the Nazis rose to power, and they took over Austria in 1938. Not willing to abandon his patients or his elderly parents, Frankl chose to stay, and he was one of the millions of Jews who ended up in a concentration camp – first at Auschwitz, then Dachau. Ever the scholar, Frankl studied his fellow prisoners, wondering about what distinguished those who maintain a positive attitude from those who cannot bear it, losing all motivation and often killing
themselves.
He concluded the answer is meaning. Those who had the best chance of survival were those whose lives had broader purpose, some goal or project or relationship, some reason to live. As he later wrote
(paraphrasing Nietzsche):
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
As a psychiatrist, Frankl was interested in mental health. But his plea for a life of meaning – a central part of the therapy he developed once he left the camps – wasn’t merely based on the notion that this would provide happiness or psychological resilience. He believed that this is the sort of existence we should
want to pursue. He was sensitive to the distinction between happiness and what Aristotle described as eudaemonia – literally “good spirit” or "good soul" -- referring to flourishing in a more general sense. It was eudaemonia that mattered to
Frankl.
(Mark's edit):
One key ingredient we need to keep in mind here is this: Living out a meaningful mission in the world involves struggle. If we just sit back and choose to do what's easy and pleasurable, we will miss that mission. A life of meaning seems to inevitably include various forms of struggle and suffering.
There is a wealth of scientific evidence suggesting a connection between meaning and suffering. Individuals who say their lives are meaningful report more anxiety and worry and struggle than those who say that their lives are happy. The
countries where citizens report the most meaning tend to be poor ones where life is relatively difficult. (In contrast, the countries with the happiest people tend to be prosperous and safe.) The jobs that people say are most meaningful, such as being a medical professional or a member of the clergy, often involve dealing with other people’s pain. And when asked to describe the most meaningful experiences of our lives, we tend to think about those on the extremes, very pleasant – and very
painful.
It’s not that we seek out suffering. Rather, we seek out meaning and purpose.
But part of meaning and purpose is difficulty – anxiety, stress, conflict, boredom, and often physical and emotional pain. We choose pursuits we know will test us – training for a marathon, raising children, climbing Everest – because we know at a gut level that these are the pursuits that matter.
NEXT ACTION
Today's recovery action is to reflect on the things you desire, and therefore
fantasize about. It's most helpful for this exercise to think about non-sexual fantasies (although often our even our sexual fantasies reveal something about our deepest longings).
For now, reflect on the things you daydream about having or doing. What do your fantasies reveal about what you are truly longing for? Are there any steps you can take today -- even small, but tangible things -- that help you move in that direction?
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Would you like to go "all in" and join the Renewed Man Boot Camp? It's a 12 Week Immersion in these principles. You'll get these daily teachings, a weekly video on one of the 12 Keys of Being a Renewed Man, and access to a support group and/or a coaching group that I lead.
Find out more about the Renewed Man Program here.
