H is strugg
ling with something or, perhaps, reading an article. She asks me a question about a particular issue. Most often her question is rhetorical; she’s simply thinking out loud.
Nevertheless, I am compelled to have an answer.
Not by her, but by my own mixed up mind.
I wonder often why this is the case. And I wonder if your experience is similar.
It’s stressful, to say the least, to always need to be right, to be on, to have the answer. Is this a guy thing? Or at least a ‘guy our age’ thing?
Here’s one thing I do get about it. From my experience in counseling and coaching men – and I know i’ve mentioned this before – there is truly a ghost of the the rugged individualist myth that’s alive and well.
Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do
You know what I mean. I know you do. We, way too often, believe that old workhorse phrase “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
Right?
Yes? Well, what the hell does that mean? What is it that a man’s ‘gotta’ do? There was a lot of that going around during the last election, the challenge to ‘man up.’
Strange thing about that is there were some instances of women saying it to women. So, it must mean something, at the very least to the psyche of the public of which we are part.
As time goes on, I realize more and more that much of what a man’s gotta do rarely really has to be done. It’s a phrase that, looking at it with a critical eye, most of all got a lot of guys in a lot of trouble.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s not better to let ourselves be a little more vulnerable. A little more human, maybe?
What do you think?
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