A Message For Men Ready To Give Up in Brief

So for a long time, I have received messages from men who have been thinking about giving up. And in a recent conversation with a buddy, he said, you know, what do you say to guys that are really thinking about giving up? Whether. Whether they're thinking about giving up a career, a job, you know, a relationship, or they're really at the end of their rope and they're thinking about just giving up altogether. And I said, you know, this is a tough one because I get messages all the time from men who are really struggling and who say that they're kind of at the end of the rope. And so I wanted to create a little video that was for any man that feels like he's at the end of what's possible. And I hope that you share this with any man that you know or you think is struggling, that is thinking about giving up and sort of throwing in the towel. And this isn't really a plea for you as a man. If you're watching this and you feel like you're at the end and you feel like it's like you want to give up, this isn't really a plea or a bargain to try and get you to stay.

It's not even really a motivational speech or video to try and convince you that life is worth living or anything as cliche as that. If. If anything, it's more of a reminder that you. You might have more choice in life than you think. And it's such a funny thing that choice plays such an incredible role in our life. And it's almost like the more mentally healthy we are, the more flexible we are in within our psychology and our mindset. But I think that that flexibility comes with being able to feel like we can choose. And I think I see so many men who have their kids taken away from them and they didn't have a choice in it, or the marriage ends and they didn't have a choice in it, or, you know, their girlfriend or their partner decides to abort a child that they really want and they didn't have a choice in it. They get fired from the job and they didn't have a choice in it, or something happens externally and, you know, causes their business to collapse and they didn't have a choice in it. And I see so many men personalizing this in a way where it's almost like I should have been able to do something about that. And my inability to do something about that means that there's either something wrong with me or the only way for me to re empower myself. Is to take back some last vestige of choice, some last remaining hint of being able to take matters into my own hands. I'm reminded of Nietzsche, who had this notion that your suffering is really the kind of forge of your becoming. And I've seen this in my own life, that my suffering and the pain that I've gone through, the terrible circumstances, the shitty decisions that I've made, the moments in my life where I haven't felt like I've had any choice, it's in those deep moments of suffering that is a kind of forge for how we could become the kind of man that we want to be. And so in this notion, you know, what you're feeling is a kind of crucible. It's a kind of notion that this is the place where truly great men can be formed. And that there's not much difference between somebody who is an addict, somebody who is lost, somebody who is completely confused, somebody who maybe like you, feels beaten down, feels like you have no choice, feels like you have no direction, feels like you have no meaning and purpose. The difference between where you are at and somebody who has built mastery and built greatness is simply that they likely started where you were. Now, yes, some people started, you know, with an advantage. And I don't want to discount that by any means, by any way, shape or form. But many, many, many people who move towards mastery and greatness are the ones who started at the bottom. They let suffering be the forge of their future becoming. They let their suffering and their pain and the feeling like I don't have a choice become the forge for something different. And it's almost like a spiritual quest. And that's the power that you get to take back. That is the choice that instead of saying, I have no choice in the suffering, there's a kind of reclamation of the choice of saying, I do have a choice. Not that I have a choice in everything that happens to me, but I have a choice in understanding that some of these things are actually happening for me, and they're happening for me to move, shape, transform, become, evolve again. This video is not about trying to convince you to do anything. It's simply acting as a reminder that you have choice. And as much as maybe your life feels like the circumstances have taken away your choice in so much of your life, which I understand again, courts, legal systems, family members, friends, trauma from your childhood, where you feel like you didn't have a choice in how things unfolded or what happened to you. I understand all of those things, and I still sit here as A reminder that choice is something that no one can ultimately take from you, no one can ultimately remove that part of your life. They can constrict and restrict and take away so much of your freedom. But how you choose to respond in any given moment is ultimately what matters. And it's not until we give away that notion that we have any choice at all or that we have any meaning at all, when we give away that to others, life, circumstances, etcetera, that's when we start to find ourselves in this place of contemplation. So.

I don't really have an ending to this outside of. I hope that this, despite the odds in your life of whatever it is that you are going through, and I don't know your circumstance, I don't know, you know, what you've gone through. You know, I'm assuming that if you're watching this and you've made it this far, it's like your life has probably been pretty hard. You know, it has probably been brutal at times. And I've seen brutal. I've worked with some men who man like, their lives have just been absolutely brutal. And it breaks my heart when I hear their stories and I hold that with them and feel for them. But this is just me saying.

You have choice. And so this video really is a kind of honoring of the remembrance that you do have a choice. And as tough as it is to say this, I just want you to know that if there's no one else in the world that will say this to you, no matter what you choose, I'll still love you. And those are the words that my mom needed to hear. Those are the words that I needed to hear. And it's hard because I think so many people, we hear that and say, how could you do that? You're letting somebody off the hook or, you know, you're giving them permission to drink or do drugs or, you know, to end their life or. No, no. It is simply a declaration of remembering that everyone has the own choice and you cannot take that away from them. You cannot take it away from them. And in fact, in order for people to move, change, heal, you know, whatever, however you want to describe that, it's actually that they need more choice reinforced with usually some structure and some grounding and some boundaries. So thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that you've man it forward and you share this podcast episode with somebody that, you know, could use it or needs to hear it. Maybe this was just for you because you know that somebody in your life is struggling in this way. Or maybe this is for you, because you are that person that's struggling in that way. And I hope that something in this video I hope that you found something in this video that was useful and meaningful, because I know that so many men who are considering calling it quits feel useless. And so I hope that you found something useful in this video. Take care.