Change of Heart

I have taken a break over the last few weeks to ponder criticisms that my previous postings were too critical of others and not very nice. I have decided that may be true. I am shifting my position and into the future will write about ideas that are more motivating and uplifting I hope. Please let me know your thoughts as I share with you ideas about the good things we are or can be doing in our lives, to be the best that we can be.

Ray

25.65 - Men, Bore Women?

In my second outing for this blog, I am contemplating many comments that were given to me regarding the first. My wife said I was too judgmental, a friend said my sentences were too complex—a byproduct of me trying to convey high intelligence I am sure—and yet another commented on the idea that men are boring. It is this last that has most caught my attention and I have spent the last week researching and truly my entire adult life being aware of. Men, on the whole, given enough time, bore women.

From a man’s perspective, we see women as a conquest. We take them out, we do interesting and diverse things with them, but in the end we end up boring them to death because we are not consistent with our attention to them. They end up putting up with us making higher priorities of cars, or sports, our friends, or anything else but them. But we got them and that is all that matters right? Wrong. The real challenge is keeping them—at least the good ones. If we do not keep up our efforts, then we will lose them.

Tolerating the occasional shopping outing but falling into complete disdain after the first thirty minutes is not good. If you commit to shopping, then be part of it, comment on items of interest to her, pay attention and see what you can find that fits the woman you are with. Go to cultural events, without negative comment and some level of enthusiasm, especially when it does not fit into your schedule between football, basketball, hockey, or baseball and this will impress them to no end. Most of all, listen to them and what is important to them. This is a good way to maintain a women’s interest in you, so if that is important to you, make the change.

Whether you are with a single or married woman, she wants to do things, see things, and be out and enjoying the world with you. She needs you to be spontaneous and adventurous in ways that will excite her. If she likes food, you need to take her to interesting and unique restaurants, if she likes photography you need to take her to places that will allow her to shoot things she will find intriguing, and if she likes to shop, learn what she likes, pay attention to what she wears and find places that she has not been to before that you think she will match her style. All of the above will be fun for her, and if she is happy, you will be very happy.

Though this seems like such a simple task, we men do not make it happen often enough. No matter how much you think you are doing to pay attention you are probably not. Step up your efforts to not bore the woman you are with. For most women it is not about spending money on them, it is about you endeavoring to entertain them that catches their attention—unless they are a dolt—in which case you should run away anyhow. Learn to listen to the woman you are with and pay attention to what makes her unique, the rewards are many. Do this completely and unselfishly and you may find that the woman you thought you knew is actually someone you really want to know; and that is worth any amount of effort.

Twenty5.Sixty5: Social Philosophy for Modern Men

25.65

How Old Am I

I woke up this morning to the White Stripes, some really old Johnny Cash, and a little Sex Pistols (to the chagrin of my wife), making sure that I was revved up for the day and that my testosterone was in check. On the cusp of my musical morning launch, I find myself at some unsettled or perhaps fluid age, moving rapidly towards 65 and swiftly away from 25. The issue troubling me is that I feel more connected to motivating stimuli (literally everything I see, hear, and touch), and possess an overall curiosity of the world around me that is more insatiable than when I was 25-and I was famished for life back then. I find myself wondering, who do I want to be as I move unstoppably forward, and how do I want my life to look as I go there? In this article, and in future postings, I will discuss my insights and findings on what I consider a life well lived for me and possibly the rest of us men moving forward into the great unknown. 
My language, writing, and demeanor is that of someone with wisdom and a fair amount of time under his belt, yet because of my exuberant nature and willingness to speak in contemporary ways, if you talk to me on the phone I am always mistaken for someone in their twenties. If you met me in person though, it would be hard for me to betray some age that is not closely representative to my actual years lived-which is not close to the number 25. I ask myself daily, "how do I reconcile this odd balance, of the days I have lived-16,792 as of sometime today-and the person I wake up feeling like every day-the 25-year-old?" I look at many of the guys I meet, socialize with, or work with, that are younger or older than me and they are sticks in the mud. They are so all-consumed by making sure they fit into some ideal of society or are towing the line of responsibility that they do not appear to be becoming anything accept what our culture dictates to them-or more succinctly: they do not appear to live, instead it appears they just exist. 
I remember as a child, looking to the adult men around me and thinking; "These guys have it made. They have jobs, cars, homes, and seem to be comfortable in their skin." Only they didn't and they don't. They were, and are still, for the majority, disenfranchised with their lives in spite of the grandiose dreams they had when they were younger. These men, from my past and present, fall into this no-man's land of embracing social conformity, shunning individuality, and forgetting that it is our job as men to force life to open itself up and reveal itself. This does not mean that we have sex with anyone that will present themselves to us for this pleasure-that is easy to make happen. Instead it is the nectar of life I am discussing, the nuances that make it individually enthralling to us to wake up every day and hunt for more. The "more" I speak of is a broad spectrum of exposure to music, the written word, abstract thought, and art both in the natural and man-made world, purposely tying us emotionally to self and those that we come in contact with. I do not want to be the guy that can only speak intelligently about sports, or cars, or modern business concepts, and misses the fact that life is happening all around me on many levels. Life is juicy and waiting for us to take giant, gluttonous bites out of it, so what are we waiting for? 
How old am I? I am only as old as I allow myself to be. As I become wiser, I see myself becoming younger and the world around me becomes more vibrant. As I step into my day I remember, that I am man, and as man, I need to hunt; specifically if that hunt is for knowledge, wisdom, and humility. As the guys in Aerosmith said 41 years ago, when they were barely even 20 years old; "all these lines on my face getting clearer." In the end, I do not care how long I have lived, so long as I have truly lived.