As recently as two days ago I was ready to settle, to coast, to no longer endure the painful toil that is life for those who want to become something.

Maybe that is you.

You have an idea of you to be. You want to be a man of valor, a man of good courage, strong and daring, fearless. You want to lead your family, take responsibility, take part in work that matters, fighting a good fight, making a difference in someone’s life, maybe even greater than just one. You want to be a man of character, a man of good presence, someone people like to have around, a man your wife and others can admire and look up to as an exemplar and a leader.

You want your life to be more than video games, a few beers and fantasy football. You’ve PR’d your bench press, your squat – I’m here for it, get as strong as you can – but you’re also wondering if your spiritual strength will ever measure up to the strength of your body – of maybe you’re wondering if you’re not much of a man because you aren’t strong at all, but you have a good heart which others call soft.

Maybe you think of yourself as nothing more than a mechanic, a barista, a trainer, a creative, on your fourth job this year hoping you don’t have to go back to chik-fil-a or clearing carpets at the movie theater; the question “what do you do for work” has become the question you dread because the answer immediately causes people to think less of you. Or at least you think it does.

If someone asked you to pray you wouldn’t know what to say and its embarrassing for you. You dread if people ask you for advice because you don’t know if what you’d say is helpful but secretly you wish someone would ask you at least one question to prove to you that someone cares about what you have to say.

Maybe you are filled with shame for past mistakes that no one can know about so you hide it from the public, but it is on repeat in your mind day by day. Maybe your shame is linked to the surmounting debt you find yourself in – how did I get so much?

You think to yourself “I will never be as smart or as successful as… fill in the blank with the person you see daily who looks like they have it all together.

You tell yourself, “I am just a shadow of a man – It’s nice Keaton that your father asked you what kind of man you wanted to be and was present for all your games and dinner. But my dad left when I was 9 years old so I had to fend for myself and teach myself. Yeah, I want life to be more than it currently is and I want to became the man I know I could be, the man I envision I could be but here I am, on my couch again for tonight’s round of Netflix and chill by myself. I’ll crack another beer, pour another drink, open another bag of chips, and let my life be what it is. Sure I am angry about it but don’t let them see your anger – that might be labeled toxic. I don’t want to be called toxic. It’s better that I sink into this couch, a stone of a man or sloth of a man depending on the day. Who needs men anyway.

I wouldn’t even know how to be a man if I tried.

I have tried and gave a good effort. I followed the advice of this podcast, I went to church but it didn’t connect. What are those songs y’all sing? I tried the books, the podcasts the workouts. But I think I will accept my life as it is.

Such is the story of many, many, men every single day. If any of that resonated with you, you are in good company. I’ve been there and everything I listed I have heard from at least one man at one time. What you struggle with or think of yourself is common to all men. And that is because those feelings you keep so close to your chest and ignore linked to something in your way – you look like a man but internally don’t feel like the man you know you could be.

What is described above is also not new – the conditions above, you could say are men who feel distressed, bitter in soul, and indebted. And there is a way out.

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