“All of us have to recognize that being a man is first and foremost being a good human. That means being responsible, working hard, being kind, respectful, compassionate. If you’re confident about your strength, you don’t need to show me by putting somebody else down. Show me by lifting somebody else up.” ~ Barack Obama, The Independent
“I think you’re always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be “cool” and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. [Growing up] is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be. I think the end product ends up being some kind of composite of these two factors.” ~ John Legend, Cosmopolitan
“Beyond a certain point in a man’s life, if he is to remain truly vital, he needs to be actively engaged in devotion to something other than his own success and happiness. The word discipline derives from the same root as the word disciple. Discipline means ‘to place oneself in the service of.’ Discipline is a form of devotion. A grown man with nothing to devote himself to is a man who is sick at heart. What a great many men in this culture choose to serve is their own reflected value, which they often believe serves the needs of their family, even while their families may be crying out for something different from them.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Recovery, at its deepest level, evokes the art of valuing, caring for, and sustaining. The relationship one sustains may be toward oneself, toward others, or even toward the world itself.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“I believe that one first changes the behaviors, then, if one is lucky, the feelings follow.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Those who do not turn to face their pain are prone to impose it.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Men who do not turn to face their own pain are too often prone to inflict it on others.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“You can inspire, influence, help, support, advise, and love others. But you can’t control how any of it is received or understood. You have no say over what gets internalized, what gets triggered, or how the other person will react. Your work is to offer your best; their work is to receive it as best they can.” ~ Emily Maroutian
“The unresolved pain of previous generations operates in families like an emotional debt. We either face it or we leverage our children with it. When a man stands up to depression, the site of his battle may be inside his own head, but the struggle he wages has repercussions far beyond him. A man who transforms the internalized voice of contempt resists violence lying close to the heart of patriarchy itself. Such a man serves as a breakwall. The waves of pain that may have wreaked havoc across generations spill over him and lose their virulent force—sparing his children. The ‘difficult repentance’ such a man undertakes protects those who follow him. And his healing is a spiritual gift to those who came before. The reclaimed lost boy such a man discovers—the unearthed emotional, creative part of him—may not be merely the child of his own youth, but the lost child of his father’s youth, or even of his father’s father.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Don’t make excuses. Don’t blame any other person or any other thing. Get control of your ego. Don’t hide your delicate pride from the truth. Take ownership of everything in your world—the good and the bad. Take ownership of your mistakes, take ownership of your shortfalls, take ownership of your problems, and then take ownership of the solutions that will get those problems solved. Take ownership of your mission. Take ownership of your job, of your team, of your future, and take ownership of your life. And lead. Lead. Lead yourself, and your team, and the people in your life; lead them all. To victory.” ~ Jocko Willink, TEDx University of Nevada
“Healthy self-esteem is the capacity—rarely taught to either sex in our culture—to hold oneself in warm regard even when colliding with one’s human shortcomings. Our capacity to stay rooted in a compassionate understanding of one another’s flaws keeps us humane. When we lose touch with our own frailties we become judgmental and dangerous to others.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Boys don’t hunger for fathers who will model traditional mores of masculinity. They hunger for fathers who will rescue them from it. They need fathers who have themselves emerged from the gauntlet of their own socialization with some degree of emotional intactness. Sons don’t want their father’s ‘balls’; they want their hearts. And, for many, the heart of a father is a difficult item to come by.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“Research teaches us that the capacity to reach out to others for help in dealing with fear and pain is the best single remedy for emotional injury. Whether the person is struggling with the effects of combat, rape, or childhood injury, the best predictor of trauma resolution is good social support.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“The key component of a boy’s healthy relationship to his father is affection, not ‘masculinity.’ The boys who fare poorly in their psychological adjustment are not those without fathers, but those with abusive or neglectful fathers. Contrary to the traditional stereotype, a sweet man in an apron who helps out with the housework may be just the nurturant kind of father a boy most needs.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“As with intelligence, so too with behaviors—malleable kids live up, or down, to our expectations.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“I think not touching a child for decades at a time is a form of injury. I think withholding any expression of love until a young boy is a grown man is a form of emotional violence. And I believe that the violence men level against themselves and others is bred from just such circumstances.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It
“When it comes to nutrition I am an, ‘anti-perfectionist.’ I am a lot more concerned with building a consistent routine that you’re actually going to stick to, rather than building the perfect diet.” ~ Thomas Frank, via YouTube
“Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine.” ~ James Clear, Atomic Habits
“Your actions reveal how badly you want something. If you keep saying something is a priority but you never act on it, then you don’t really want it. It’s time to have an honest conversation with yourself. Your actions reveal your true motivations.” ~ James Clear, Atomic Habits