Man Up. Just make sure it’s to become the right kind of man.

I know that some people reading this might take offense. Some might even stop following me for it, but I have to get this off my chest. Guys, stop looking for excuses and Man Up. Just make sure it’s to become the right kind of man.

A few years ago, during the time the economy tanked, my life took a turn for the worst. I went into a downward spiral of personal disasters, one after another. This slump lasted for about 5 years. I blamed everyone and everything around me for my unhappiness. I blamed the economy, my boss at the time, my family situation, karma, fate, God, everything and everyone.

One night I met up with one of my Compadres for a couple of drinks. Ok, not a couple, but rather one of those “drink your sorrows away” binges. He looked at me the same way my mother would look at me when I did something stupid, and in the most eloquent use of words, summed up what I had to do.

Do you want me to hold your hand? Do you want me tell you it’s going to be OK? Guess what, it’s not. Now stop bitching and get your shit together. Life is hard. Be a Man and deal with it.

I know that a lot of you might think, what the hell does this man know about a hard life? Let’s just say that this is a guy who has been to hell and back several times in his life, and was still standing strong.

Lately I have been seeing how people will “bitch” about how life is. They find offense in anything and everything that might require them to take control of their lives. When Maria Kang started promoting the idea of “No Excuses”, the idea that people need to stop making excuses and take control of their health, the social media went on a rampage against her. People took her message of being accountable for your actions as an attempt to shame obese people.

How often have we now heard that Man Up is offensive? Yes, it has been used to promote gender stereotypes by the media. But at the same time, its core message can’t be denied. Grow up and stop being a child. Stop blaming everyone else for your failures. You want a good life? Take control of the one you have, take control of your destiny, of yourself. It’s message is so important that an entire global movement to end violence against women is called Man-Up.

What should you take out of this? Life is hard. But instead of focusing on just how bad you have it, focus on how to make it better. And then, do it!

Why Being Caballero and not just Being Gentleman?

Many of you might have wondered why I use the term Caballero and not just use the term Gentleman? You’re probably thinking it’s because Caballero simply gentleman in Spanish and Spanish is my native tongue? You might even think it’s because I want to show off my bilingualism or to try to establish a broader market. 

The quick and simple answer is…. no, so brace yourself. A quick history lesson is coming faster than winter. 

Gentleman was originally a British rank for a man who was above a Yeoman, a free man or peasant who owned land, and an Esquire, the lowest rank in the process to becoming a knight. As knighthood faded with the medieval age, gentleman became the general term for all nobility, and later for any man who demonstrated proper behavior, like that of a noble. Even though Knights, and later Cavaliers, were Gentlemen not all Gentlemen were Knights and not all Gentlemen followed the military aspect of Chivalry. The proper translation to Spanish of the word Gentleman is gentilhombre, not Caballero.

So, what IS Caballero? 

Caballerosidad, or “Chivalry” in English, refer to the code cavalrymen within an army. Caballero, when talking about medieval time, was the Spanish term for knights. Owning a horse was expensive, so if you were in the cavalry, you were probably rich. Even though the knights of old phased out, the chivalric code continued due to the close ties that the Church and State maintained in Spain. The constant wars Spain maintained, from the Reconquista of Iberia to the Conquistadors in America, guaranteed that the warrior traditions of the Caballero endured far past the time when the Knightly traditions died out in the rest of Europe. The proper translation of the Caballero is not Gentleman, but actually Cavalier. 

As the social importance of nobility died out and the world change, so did the definition of noble behavior.  A brand new world came about out of the old, the land of the mongrel, the land of the Self-Empowered. Being a Gentleman was no longer determined by birthright but by personal choice. You chose to educate yourself. You chose to become a better human being. It was no longer forced upon you, but instead you worked for it every day. We set our own rules, and our own expectations, in a new world without previous limits or expectations. The slave could end up rich, and the rich could end up slaves. You paid for your actions, fought for all you had, and build a society that is still evolving to this day.

Some Gentlemen, especially those with a military or a martial background, keep the warrior aspect of Chivalry and Gallantry alive, but not all Gentlemen keep the warrior aspects as part of their personal Ethos. The Caballero traditions tend to include the fact that part of what it means to be a Gentleman IS that warrior path. 

Unfortunately we see a slow and tragic decline of this attitude, as a result from rebelling to the old ways. Maybe it was the inclusion of capitalist ideals or a communist social order, or simply a result of the general homogeneous globalization, the change is evident. We have youth rebelling against the established traditions, be them good or bad, under the blind idea that anything old is wrong and anything new is right. Change is change. It is neither good nor bad. The same can be said about stagnation. 

We should not simply throw away the ideal of being a gentleman, but rather evolve it to match the changing times. We must embrace the social and cultural diversity while keeping the virtues and principals taught to us by tradition, never losing lose the Warrior’s determination. And that is why Being Caballero came about.

Redefining the Contract between Ladies and Gentlemen.

The best thing about writing online is how accessible everyone is, including yourself. This opens up the opportunity for me to discuss my topic of choice with people beyond my own social circle. Why do I find this so important? Because individuals tend to surround themselves with like-minded people, it’s really easy to think that everyone else thinks the same way or everyone has the same common knowledge. So getting input from outside your group is critical.

Yesterday I got tagged on a comment that I found rather interesting. I won’t go into the details of the conversation, but it boiled down to a man wondering why men had to be Gentlemen if women weren’t willing to be Ladies. My first clarification to this was what I always say; you are not a gentleman to impress women, but to be a better man. He understood my comment but his was rather interesting; “what about the social contract”?

For those who never dealt with really old-school traditions, there is a concept called the “Contract between Gentlemen and Ladies.” For those that have never heard of the contract before, it’s basically the idea that a Gentleman exists because there are Ladies, and vise versa. It goes further into the idea that you don’t have to be either a Gentleman or a Lady to those that don’t behave appropriately.

So it boils down to men complaining that they can’t find Ladies, so they aren’t willing to be Gentlemen, and women complaining that they can’t find Gentlemen, so they aren’t willing to be Ladies. Unless we break this concept, we are stuck in a horrible cycle of social mediocrity, with the only winner being Reality TV.

Before you continue in this frustrating spiral, let me make the following clear.

1.  Don’t become a Lady or a Gentleman just to please someone else. Become a Gentleman or a Lady for our own personal development.
2. Ladies and Gentlemen are not that hard to find. The problem finding them is that neither is loud and boisterous, as their crass counterpart.
3. If you don’t surround yourself with the appropriate people, don’t be surprised if you keep meeting inappropriate one. 

So instead of worrying why you can’t find a Lady or a Gentleman, ask yourself how is you are one and what kind of people do you surround yourself with.