New Years Resolutions

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in London. There are 30 people sitting around me. 10 have New Years resolutions.

Why when it comes to New Year is there a renewed sense of purpose. ‘This year will be different, this year I will achieve X, Y or Z’

But more importantly why does this sense of purpose usually last no longer than 7 days.. As humans surely we’ve evolved the capacity to stick to things that will improve the part of ourselves we are most unhappy about, our weight, careers, relationships..

There are two factors in play here:

1. Lack of purpose

We tend to live reactive lives, responding to things on the spur of the moment, ending up in careers and relationships that don’t make much sense (cognitive dissonance aside) but usually serve a basic purpose.

2. Societal conditioning

• We get things without doing anything
• We use TV, alcohol, video games and porn as an easy fix
• We chase material goods at the expense of our dreams

By realising your sense of purpose you are putting the framework in place to overcome anything society can throw at you. If you have a purpose, you will work hard to achieve it, if you have a purpose you will realise a sense of ongoing fulfilment that can’t be trumped by an easy fix, if you have a purpose you realise material goods are a means to an end.

A New Years resolution is a cowards excuse for why they haven’t.

A purpose is a mans way of defining why they can.

 

 

 

 

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The Vampire

A fool there was and he made his prayer

To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,

(We called her the woman who did not care),

But the fool he called her his lady fair

 

Oh, the years we waste and the tears we waste,

And the work of our head and hand

Belong to the woman who did not know

(And now we know that she never could know)

And did not understand!

 

A fool there was and his goods he spent,

Honour and faith and a sure intent

(And it wasn’t the least what the lady meant),

But a fool must follow his natural bent

 

Oh, the toil we lost and the spoil we lost

And the excellent things we planned

Belong to the woman who didn’t know why

(And now we know that she never knew why)

And did not understand!

 

The fool was stripped to his foolish hide,

Which she might have seen when she threw him aside

(But it isn’t on record the lady tried)

So some of him lived but the most of him died

 

 

And it isn’t the shame and it isn’t the blame

That stings like a white-hot brand

It’s coming to know that she never knew why

(Seeing, at last, she could never know why)

And never could understand!

Rudyard Kipling

The Fountainhead

“The noble soul has reverence for itself” Frederich Nietzsche

Never has a book had such a profound impact on my view of the world as The Fountainhead. The book starts like a standard novel, exploring the lives of two distinct architects; one driven through an unbreakable will and absolute belief in himself and the other, an expert in repackaging the greatness of others for his own benefit.

However as the book moves into parts 2, 3 and 4 you realise that the contrast is just a simplistic introduction to how our society operates, how originality is so rare and that for everyone that wants to raise themselves up, 100 want to pull them back down. Ayn Rand in her foreword to the novel explains this in perhaps the most astute way, ‘It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature- and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning – and it is those few that I have always sought to address. It is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls.’

The book is a moral in man seeing their highest potential and striving to achieve it. Don’t compromise yourself, don’t compromise your beliefs. Too much in our careers we regurgitate the messages fed down from our superiors irrespective of what we actually think. We are automatons living to express the view of others. Over time this starts to envelop our mind, we start to forget what it means to think for ourselves. Then before you know it, every opinion you express is just something you heard or read elsewhere. There are a number of reasons we do this; firstly you’re protecting your fragile ego. When expressing the views of others you don’t feel that deep sense of rejection when it’s not your idea that’s discarded.  Secondly its easier. There is nothing easier than knowing the belief you’re expressing is already a commonly held popular belief.  You will feel a sense of acceptance and recognition which you will attribute to yourself, when in-fact you just became that expert in repackaging other peoples beliefs. The above assumes you are aware of what you are doing which is not always the case. When we express something against our moralistic view, our gut fights against it, we feel uncomfortable, we know there is something wrong but we push on anyway till eventually our gut gives way. Only by reasserting our self onto our viewpoints can we correct this. Think, ‘Is this what I truly believe? Is this my opinion?’ If it is then stick to it and never compromise.

Reading The Fountainhead helped me to realise how much more I had in common with Keating than Rourke. It was an eye opening experience to realise most of the characteristics which have helped me progress in society are the ones that I ended up despising throughout the book. Ayn Rands reason for writing The Fountainhead was to, ‘show life as it really is, with its real meaning and reasons.’ Once you’ve read this book you have two choices:

1. Live in everyone else’s world

2. Live in your own and strive for greatness

Only you can make that decision

embrace your masculinity

It is who you are, we may have been nurtured by society, our friends and family to believe it’s wrong – but it is more natural than anything.

Do you have dreams…then live them. If you don’t, then look into your soul and work out what you want to do with the time that you have.

My dream is to live. Not just dovetail through life in a way society dictates but to really live life. 

Find things I want to learn, focus on things I want to achieve, get to where I want to be and have amazing experiences along the way. Life isn’t about being complete it is about the journey to get there.

Someone once said to me ‘What is the secret to masculinity?’ There is no secret. It is embracing who you are and who you were born to be. 

A man has dreams, a man has desire and focus to reach those dreams, a man continuously wants to better himself, a man puts his life above all others, a man realises his own self worth, a man creates boundaries, a man doesn’t apologise for who he is and doesn’t change for anyone but himself.

Be that man today – there is no time to waste.