Integrated individuals don’t throw their pearls at swine. Being the most authentic version of yourself and living with vision and purpose has a price tag which as individuals we pay for with the three things we get to spend, save and invest. You may have heard me say it before, my wife coined the acronym for the word SYSTEM, it stands for Save Yourself Some TIME, ENERGY and MONEY. When you are investing your time, energy and money into your Idea of a Man™ you will want to surround yourself with other genuine individuals who also are on their hero’s journeys to develop themselves into the best versions of themselves they can be. To waste time and energy with people engaged in frivolous activities or behaviours or ideologies which don’t align with your sense of purpose and the vision you are building is an investment of time, energy and money you likely cannot afford.

Now it is not for me to paint the picture of what frivolous activities, behaviours or ideologies look like for you. Depending on your Idea of a Man™ and the vision you have which you are seeking to realise will determine this for yourself. Therefore, your tribe may look pointedly different to mine and the type of character who I might align with for a Best Mate may be someone whose very essence bores you to tears. 

This getting to know yourself and standing in your square is real work. It is the work that enables you to differentiate your truth from the enumerable options and possibilities available to all of us. Depending on where we find ourselves geographically and socially and the family we are born into and the places we frequent on account of responsibilities like our work place, or place of education we will have been presented with a variety of people and their various lives. 

In the current age with the internet we get to ‘socialise’ with a bigger pool of people if we so choose in various kinds of interactions. What we are initially presented with does not have to set our limitations however. Because once this game of self discovery is underway and the real us emerges within our own consciousness, we’ll have a clearer idea of what a like minded individual looks like.

By engaging your higher self in this process you are drawing down your intuitive wisdom, which as men we have more than enough access to if we’ll only learn how to access it. Doing this exercise as described above will help with this. But more importantly for this article will help you in determining if in fact there is a vacancy which needs to be filled. If this is the case, there is nothing wrong with that, and please don’t think this is something that needs to be filled hastily. As we spoke about initially, the cultivation of our relationship with ourselves is the primary prerequisite for meaningful mutually beneficial interactions with others. Therefore, your current situation maybe a gift from the universe to enable you the space to cultivate a deeper, richer knowledge of self so that the gift of you to others and your capacity to receive the gifts others have for you will be a mutual exchange which can genuinely enhance your life, your physical lived experience and be a support network to enable to you fulfil your dreams, goals and aspirations as you traverse in this realm as a man which for many of us is a very lonely road.

Let’s face it, being a man out here can surely be a lonely experience, and the older you get, and the more you have resting on your shoulders, the less easy it can be to find meaningful companionship and quality individuals to spend your time and energy with. However, loneliness itself can have negative implications many of us are not aware of. When I was studying psychology and counseling, a conversation which a class I was in was having with the tutor caused the tutor who works in the field as well as teaching at university to explain that loneliness is in fact a cause of death amongst many men. I certainly had never heard this before. But being me and thinking about the things which I think about I had to ponder the depth of this reality.