16 Mar When I Can’t Sleep In The Bed I’ve Made

Okay – Responsibility. It’s one of those words, it’s like ‘Discipline’ it reminds us of school, parents, and church – bosses, police and other authority figures and their imposed regulations, demands and requirements. Oh, and always when you least want to – ‘tidy your room’, ‘do your homework’, ‘run cross country’ or sort out your tax return. ‘Landlords’, energy companies, council tax. The myriad stuff which we all have to ‘handle’ day to day in the western world just in order to do life.

So, responsibility gets a bad rap, even if its reputation is lodged in our subconscious and has not yet reached our conscious awareness. This sense that we need to defend ourselves against getting roped into doing things which either don’t interest us, or which in fact we have an aversion to.

Some of us develop an appreciation for discipline, we realise its benefits perhaps at a young age and become aware of what it can do for us. But ‘what is it doing for us?’ – Are we using discipline to get things done to obtain approval, does our discipline get us good grades, make us popular at school, a teacher’s pet, a parent’s favourite, a group of friends. This isn’t all bad of course, if it’s not ‘adaptive’ in order to simply assuage our anxiety and survive adverse external feedback.

However, when this is the case and our whole use of self-discipline, and apparent handling of responsibility is driven by a need to ballast our self-worth through external subscription, these otherwise positive traits are in fact simply shields, defenses against a lack of acceptance which we can in fact learn to derive from within.

For most of us though, I think ‘Discipline’ and ‘Responsibility’ carry the energy of cuss words because of an over association with the things mentioned above, of course framed within our own unique narrative, our distinct lived experience and paradigm but nevertheless from whichever angle they impact our lives seeing the intrinsic benefit in taking responsibility or in developing discipline can be difficult when it’s loaded with so much baggage.

And baggage because heck often we were being challenged to exert these traits by less than perfect people, demanding what seems like perfection from us – the hypocrisy has reached all-time highs in society today, when we witness the atrocious things many ‘authority figures’ are being outed for, police doing atrocious killings. ‘Church leader’ scandals that make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, we all know our parents weren’t perfect and heck we all know as parents we’re less than perfect ourselves but we’re often repeating similar patterns to our offspring.

But that aside, I want to address the issue as men, because that is what The Idea of a Man™ is all about, the specific issues we face and must grapple with by default of simply being a man.

My marriage councilor put my wife’s mind to rest with a simple statement which turned out to be a moment of insight for her. In a session the three of us were having he stated, ‘men fuck up’. Simple enough statement, but it turns out loaded with so much truth. I mean sure we can play the ‘well, women fuck up too’ card if we like. But the point and why it was so significant was that due to many factors; – factors TheIdeaofaMan™ will tackle in other posts I’m sure – as men we face certain specific demons which if unaddressed cause unwanted, often surprising, and always stress inducing fuckups.

What do we do when all we’ve held dear is about to crumble, when those near and dear feel betrayed, have lost trust in us, are hurt, and blindsided by our actions, our irresponsibility, our lack of integrity or disingenuous behaviour? 

How do we respond to life when all the fingers are pointing at us and we have to admit failure, hold our hands up and admit we’ve fucked up?

I believe what happens next could be the defining moment in our lives.

I recently turned 45, and having had myriad ups and downs, many failures and setbacks and a plethora of life lessons, I considered if I were to live to 90 then I’m exactly halfway through this game of life right now. The difference, however, is that I’m not having to go through being a baby to a toddler to a nursery aged kid to a school age kid to an adolescent to a young man, I’ve done all that. For all intents and purposes, I’m a grown ass man. Therefore, the question is ‘have I learnt anything?’ or, ‘Will I simply keep going in circles repeating the same old same old behaviours which I regret, or which have caused myself and others pain? Or have the lessons gotten through? 

Have I been paying attention to the clues, the cookies on the trail that life has been leaving that suggest perhaps a more conscious approach to life’s situations and scenarios will serve me well?

When I review some of the things my wife and I are dealing with, the trust issues that require resolution, the hurt my children have experienced due to witnessing the eruption of our pent-up frustration over the 26 years of our marriage. When I assess my financial status, my current fitness level, my circle of friends or lack thereof the mountain that needs to be climbed can look insurmountable at times. There are of course sufficient ready arguments which suggest ‘get out clauses’ and socially acceptable escape routes. But what if for example I were to leave my wife to grapple with the trust issues she’s developed in our relationship on her own. What if she had to try to resolve them in another relationship. Why should another man have to suffer the anxiety and paranoia I’ve caused?

Selah

Of course, fingers can be pointed, blame can be assigned, responsibility can be shrugged; but there’s that word again – Responsibility. Who apart from me should take responsibility for the mess – I’ve made? 

Like I just said, I’ve been a teenager before. I’ve been a child, a dependent, needing a responsible adult to clear up my mess, or demand that I clear it up. And of course, I’m writing this article out of the very real inbuilt aversions I have to words like ‘discipline’, ‘responsibility’ and injunctions like; ‘tidy your room’, ‘go for a run’, ‘organise your finances’, ‘do your sit ups’ etc. but how will the needle get moved if these things are not addressed. How will anything ever change if I don’t change my relationship to these terms?

I’m a big believer in making things fun and attainable. Wherever possible breaking things down into bite size pieces and in setting rewards and mini goals which when achieved can be cause for celebration and a moment to stop and acknowledge my achievement. This works for me a lot and helps me discipline myself when for all intents and purposes I’m not feeling the motivation.

The concept: ‘TheIdeaofaMan™’, came about by the recognition that unless and until I had a clear and inspiring vision of the man I want to show up as, it would be almost impossible to motivate myself to achieve anything substantial if it was solely predicated on the need for external validation. I got to that place where I’d seen so much hypocrisy, felt sufficiently let down by surrounding authority figures that what they expected held very little sway within me to motivate me to rouse myself to action.

Nevertheless, I’m a driven individual with a deep sense of purpose and desire to achieve. The awareness for me has been to realise therefore, that the drive must come from within. I must be spurred on by a desire to accomplish goals which align with my own sense of purpose and my own value system.

So, when I survey the issues before me in my mountain, when I feel the sting of accusation or blame and am reminded that despite my best efforts, this life is a marathon not a sprint. I recognise I need to embrace responsibility. If I’m struggling to sleep in the bed I’ve made, it’s time to put my mind to use to work out a strategy for remaking beds.

Our minds are powerful things, and often we neglect to realise their potential as a tool to get us out of scrapes and take our lives from surviving to thriving. But we need to familiarise ourselves with the term ‘use our mind’. And recognise our minds’ utility. It is not just a machine our employer gets to resource to accomplish their targets and pay us enough to come back next week. It’s the software in our hardware that can connect us to idea’s, to solutions and to strategies for implementing those ideas and solutions and for changing our reality.

So, in conclusion, if you’re struggling when you look at the fuckups that have characterised your current station in life, and you’re considering ways to make a clean break and erase all the evidence, consider if this is in fact the most responsible course of action. And when the aversion to the idea of taking responsibility comes up, recognise where that aversion springs from and consider; ‘If life is what you make it, and this is what you’ve made so far, what makes you think running away will enable you to make something better somewhere else. ‘You’- remember are going to be the common denominator – you can’t run away from yourself.

Therefore, the other glaring alternative is to recognise the road to your evolution is not away from the obstacle but as Ryan Holiday stated, The Obstacle is the Way. In order to tackle the bad taste and associated trauma that grappling with responsibility holds for many of us, intuiting that in fact, embracing a new paradigm concerning responsibility a paradigm which includes a vision of ourselves as the man we want to be, a perspective that comes out of appreciation of the hard work and wins we have made, recognised or not, and a desire to make our lives, lives for us that have meaning for us perhaps the road of responsibility holds gems and treasures which we’ll only discover if we’ll be brave enough, be responsible enough, to take on the responsibility not for anyone else’s life but simply of our own. What is your Idea of a Man™?