More Than Just Words

The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

As of late, there has been a rise in the amount of Men’s Empowerment and Gentlemen Motivational groups and workshops. And this is a wonderful thing as it helps spread out the word that character and morals are important within a man’s life. With our casual access to social media, pages similar to this one help guide men who’ve lost their way back in the right path. They serve as a North Star off which men can cast their own route to becoming better men.  Unfortunately, the same popularity that has brought together men searching for ways to become better men has also attracted plenty of lesser men with ulterior motives.

You would think that a message of “Men of Character” or “True Gentleman” would scare off the daring of plagiarists and hypocrites feeding their vanity through the modern social media currency of likes, shares, and followers.  Personal experience has proven the contrary as I already mentioned once before.  The problem is how as of late, this movement has also started to attract the vultures, those unethical sites and motivators looking to profit by exploiting the weak.

Let me make it perfectly clear, there is nothing wrong with someone charging for sharing their knowledge. There is nothing wrong for profiting from your own efforts. If you work for it, you might as well get paid for it. And that’s OK. We all have bills to pay and mouths to feed. “Monetizing” isn’t a bad word.

My problem is when I find “Gentlemen” Coaches plagiarizing the work of other gentlemen pages and selling it as their own. Even more amazing is the laziness of their actions, as they will take content and graphics straight from the original site and simply crop out the logo. You would think that selling lessons in character and integrity would have rubbed off on the teacher.

And Gentlemen sites aren’t the only ones affected with this practice.

You might have noticed that as soon as you get a cool quote popping up on your social media feed, about 10 minutes later you will see the same quote pasted on about 5 different memes from like minded sites. Again, you would think that sites promoting integrity would be above acts of moral turpitude, or would at the very least understand the concept of “clean hands.”

You see, when your moral integrity is questionable ANY words you state have no value, as you have already been proven to be untrustworthy. Stealing someone’s intellectual property and then sell it forward as your own pretty much invalidates any claim you might have towards words like Character and Integrity.

Chivalry: Is it Dead?

Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth.

Charles Kingsley

There is one comment on Chivalry that gets more Social Media time than if it’s sexist, and that is if it’s dead. We hear it from the social justice warriors complaining that Chivalry enforces gender distinctions based on sexism, something we spoke about yesterday. Mostly we hear this countless times every time a guy complain about women and says that chivalry isn’t worth the effort or from women complaining that men are assholes. With so many people openly eulogizing Chivalry, could it be that it’s dead?

Far from it. From what I can tell, Chivalry doesn’t even have a cold.

But then why is it so rare nowadays?  The truth is, it isn’t rare. It just isn’t loud. We see it every day in the simple and small acts that men do that so often goes unnoticed because it’s second nature to them. We see it in the men who do good anonymously to make this world a little better. We see it in the WWII Veteran willing to go to jail for feeding the homeless. We see it in the famous actor who went back to his old job as a first responder during the 911 events. We see it in the young men who made the ultimate sacrifice to save their girlfriends. We see it in an anonymous "Santa" who paid off $50,000 worth of lay-aways for people he doesn’t even know.

And it’s not just in the grand gesture. We see it in simple everyday acts. We see it in another famous actor who offered his seat in the metro. We see it in the man who bought all the roses from a street vender with the condition that she gave them away to everyone she met. We see it in a president who shares his umbrella under the rain. And just this week, we see it in the Quarterback willing to help a lady stay out of the mud.

We have all heard the stories about men doing good, yet these stories are constantly drowned out by social media noise. With a medium dominated by loud groups of self-centered individuals screaming look at how awesome I am and self-righteous individuals screaming look at how awful he is, what chance does chivalry have to be heard?

None, and that’s a good thing. You see, chivalry should never be about looking for the spotlight. It should be about doing what’s right because it’s the right thing to do. And as long as there are good men in the world, good acts will follow.

Chivalry Is A Man’s Recognition Of His Privileges

Some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

Some time ago I posted an article where I mentioned how “few words create such a vivid, complex, controversial, and individualized interpretation within the English language as Gentleman. Although Chivalry isn’t far behind.” At that time, I focused on the universal archetype of the Gentleman, leaving to deal with Chivalry on a later date.

Guess what? It’s a later date.

Many people dismiss (or rather would like to dismiss) chivalry as a concept whose time has passed. “I treat everyone equally” or “it’s about being civil” or the ever present “I respect everyone” are used over and over as an apparent dismissal of the need for Chivalry. Others have called Chivalry as a form of “benevolent sexism” citing the fact that gentlemen tend to offer ladies a higher level of respect in actions than they do other men. This would be true if it had anything to do with what chivalry actually is and the obligations it imposes on a gentleman.

I used the word obligations with full intent of the word. Since the days of the Knight and the Samurai and the Junzi, the chivalrous had moral obligations due to his privileged position within society. They understood the blessings they possessed, and also understood that these blessings came with a series of duties. This attitude carried on to the gentlemen of old and carries on to the modern gentlemen. The problem today is how men refuse to acknowledge their social obligations as they refuse to acknowledge the privileges within their lives.

Your age gives you the privilege of experience. This means you have the duty of mentorship. Your youth gives you the privilege of strength. This means you have an obligation to protect those you can. Up to now, this is pretty easy to understand by everyone. But it’s when you move to recognizing some touchy subjects that people tend to ignore their privileges within the world. Here’s where most tend to falter within their duties and obligations as they refuse to see the inequalities within the world and how they are benefited from these social injustices.

Your social standings and financial security, however earned, mean you are privileged to a better life. This means you have a duty to lead a charitable life helping those less fortunate. Your gender as a man means you don’t have to deal with some of the sexism and threats women deal with every day from men who openly attack them simply for being a woman. This means you have a duty to, at the very least make their everyday a little better as you understand the burdens of being a woman within today’s society. Remember that “benevolent sexism” comment? As a gentleman, you are more of a feminist than most guys who simply believe in treating women as equals. But as I have said before, not everyone understands chivalry.

Phrases like “I treat everyone equally” simply mean you refuse to accept the privileges you possess. This, if anything, means you are doing the very least to lead a civil life while enjoying how life handed you a better hand. You refuse to acknowledge how your social standing benefits you, how your race benefits you, how your sexual orientation benefits you, or how your gender benefits you.

It isn’t that you are better than anyone, but that you understand that your life has provided you with certain benefits and blessings, irrelevant of how they happened. Chivalry is an act of social equity where you recognize your privileges and work to help those around you. This is why, even though a gentleman might be well off, he is able to remain humble. You recognize every privilege given to you by life and understand how others are not as fortunate. You understand that something as simple as being able to help others, even if it’s as simple as making their lives a little more comfortable, means you are obligated to do so.

That is why a gentleman holds himself to such high standards. With all your blessings and good fortune, your life must be one of service to others. Be honored that within your belief you carry the traditions and attitude of those who came before you; the Knights, the Samurai, and the Junzi.

Is Chivalry dead? Not as long as Gentlemen live with a Warrior’s hearts.

Prove Your Worth Only To Yourself.

You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.

Maya Angelou

As a man in today’s society, you will find yourself having to prove your worth constantly. Be it to your boss, your employees, your significant other, your friends, your family, and to every single stranger you meet, especially in the online community. Let me simply state that if you need to prove your worth, you already forgot your own value.

We live in a society so centered in focusing everything everyone does wrong that is becomes hard to see what anyone does right. Shame and guilt has become the most common tool to keep people in line, even if they never stray from said line. Men are born with the guilt of weakness as every single negative stereotype of masculinity is thrown on our shoulders. Having to prove they are better than their brothers, we need to prove ourselves with a constant pissing contest among ourselves. To women, we are constantly forced to prove ourselves worthy, as so many before us laid the groundwork for a life of shaming.

Here’s a little secret to all of you. You don’t need to play that game. Anyone who needs you to prove your worth is not really looking to see your worth.  They are really interested in proving their own preconceptions right. The fact that they make you feel you need to prove yourself to them, says a lot about them. They are looking to judge you based on their own weaknesses, not yours.

Self-worth doesn’t come from validation from others; it comes from validation from yourself, from realizing you are worthy. When you send your time in hopes to being accepted, you lose yourself in the process. Realize you have to prove yourself to yourself, and nobody else. Your self-worth has nothing to do with what others think of you, but what you think of yourself. When you feel the need to prove your worth, you already forgot your value. With that in mind, why would you need to prove yourself to anyone?

If you believe in yourself, if you believe you are worthy, it should reflect in everything you do. That means anyone who wants to see your worth would only need to look at who you are and what you do. There shouldn’t be a need to show it or sell yourself or prove your actions. They should be evident enough for anyone to see them.

Don’t tell me what’s wrong with the world…

In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first.

Jimi Hendrix

So, you logged in this morning, and already have seen 20 posts of what’s wrong with this world. Every social media outlet has people screaming left and right how everything everyone is doing is wrong, how the world need to change, and that’s without going into the comment sections… and yet how many of these posts mention something about what kind of world would be better?

Very few. We have become a society of opposing politicians yelling the world about what the other is doing wrong. The problem with men is this, the problem with women is that. Look at what this social group is doing, look at what that religion promotes, condemn what the other country does. And yet we do so little to define what we proposes as an alternative.

I love history because it lets you see how peoples actions create change. During my youth, I studied an event within the University of Havana. In 1947, a group of students, challenging the conservative society they lived in, broke into the Library and burned several copies of ‘Vignola,’ a classical book on design. And you would think that this would usher a new modern era for society, based on the idea of the ‘Tabula Rasa.’. The reality was that 10 years later, the only thing that really changed in Cuba was who was in charge, and society didn’t get any better.

The great people who want to change the world do so thinking of what world they want to create. This way they can actually consider what changes they want to apply, what work they need to do. They can work to change what doesn’t work for that new world, and make better what does.

What they don’t do is believe that scrapping everything leads to anything good. What they can't see is how scrapping everything leads to scrapping the few good things we have done also.

Every time you call out for a revolution based on the idea that what is now is wrong, it’s only a call to those who don’t agree with what’s there, for whatever their own reasons. “Change the world to make it better for me” is the usual sentiment you can take from their reasons for change.  Other times they just want to vent their frustration and anger, get even for wrongs done to them. It’s not about making a better world, but about a Vendetta.

So before you rant online, consider your dream. Define your vision. Stop telling me what’s wrong with the world and let’s start talking about what kind of world we want to create.