Tag Archives: Manhood

My dear Jack, how many times have you heard the expression, be a man!  “Be a man!” is the picture of a young man about to cry over a situation but being urged to toughen up, stiffen up and not let out the tears. You’ve probably heard the expression since you were a kid. If you got into a scuffle, you were encouraged not to cry, to be a man! If you went to hospital and the injection proved particularly painful and evil, and you felt like crying, chances are your father would have said to you, be a man! These examples seem to create the impression that being a man is the ability to absorb pain, or to stand up to someone. Continue reading →

My dear Jil, I present a few lessons from my letters to you in 2017. I hope you take them to heart as you enter the new year. Here they are: Continue reading →

My dear Jack, that’s a false definition of manhood and you have all these false notions out there of what a man really is. It’s like those beer adverts that define manhood as the ability to consume beer. Of course you don’t believe that, do you? If you believe a beer ad that says you’re noble because you consume a particular brand of beer, you must be desperate.
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My dear Jack, well, if she earns higher than you what can you do? It’s what it is. I mean, you can’t tell her employer to reduce her pay because she earns higher than you! “Increase my salary because my girlfriend earns higher than I” is obviously not tenable in the corporate sector. Someone is bound to ask, why don’t you date someone earning lower than you if it’s a real concern?
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My dear Jack, you have to keep accumulating value in your marriage. It’s how you become valuable and your marriage grows stronger. You cannot remain the young man who married. As the years progress, there must be maturation and value addition. When you marry as a young man, you are a potentiated entity. But you can’t go through the lifetime of the marriage a potential. At some point, potential has to manifest in concrete terms. It can’t forever remain a potential.
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My dear Jack, I’m sure you’ve heard about The Seven Deadly Sins. They’re the stuff of legend in Hollywood. There’s even a movie with that title, though of a disturbing nature. The movie is about a psychopath. (Why do they always have those psychopaths for these things?) The seven deadly sins are Solomonic actually. They are the seven abominations. Though “The Parson’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as well as artworks like Dante’s Purgatory, help illustrate the sins. If you want to have a successful marriage you have to be mindful of the seven deadly sins.
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My dear Jack,

How are you today? It’s yet another Saturday and here I am writing you once more on the issues of life.

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