I’m buying if you’re selling, lol.
I’ve been paused for almost 2 months and I’m backtracking. I believe the best solution for this is for me to orient to a higher purpose.
I need to define what that higher purpose is, though.
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Or breed, have little squirrels then live vicariously thru them! 
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If I recall correctly, Andrew already has kids though. That’s a common myth that needs to die; that all a man needs is a family and he should be happy and fulfilled. A lot of messed up parents and kids out there because of that one.
Andrew, I’m around your age and in the same boat as you. Spent most of my 20’s and early 30’s working on my money, body, and mind until people who knew me before could barely recognize me.
- Grad school: check
- Buy a house: check
- New truck and motorcycle: check
- Cushy corporate job: check
- Hot young girlfriend: check
Same problem as you now though; what the heck do I do with it all? I could keep building my bank account but I’m not a super materialistic person. And I could travel the world living some kind of epicurean, hedonistic lifestyle but that isn’t me either. Men need some kind of greater purpose in life.
There’s a quote I like from Ted Turner - “Be sure to set your goals so high that you can’t possibly accomplish them in one lifetime. That way you’ll always have something ahead of you. I made the mistake of setting my goals too low, and now I’m having a hard time coming up with new ones.” I’m not sure I agree 100% but it’s interesting to think about.
At the same time, I like the Aerosmith lyric “Life’s a journey, not a destination”.
Rambling at this point but I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s typical for men to get a little restless and always be on the lookout for the next mountain to climb.
EDIT: one last thing I wanted to say - I think the day you stop looking for mountains to climb is the day you really “die”. For some this happens at 89 and for some at 29. You see this with all the dudes just coasting by on a life of fantasy football, IPAs and Call of Duty.
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I may catch shit for this, but living just for my daughter and family isn’t enough for me.
Don’t get me wrong, our children are our legacy, but I’m living my life for me, while also raising my daughter to be the best version of herself she can be.
For a lot of people, just living through their children is enough. For me, it isn’t.
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You figured out your purpose yet?
I have some literature I’ve been reading through that’s been helping me out, but its all stuff to direct me towards defining my purpose for myself. Figured you may find these of use, if you haven’t found an answer yet.
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That’s really good that you’ve got to the point of recognising this, an identity wrapped up in stuff or achievement will only ever leave you feeling empty. There’s a fascinating quote from Madonna:
‘My drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. That is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.’
I have my own thoughts on this:
And what I believe to the only satisfactory purpose for all of mankind, presumably you’ll know it if you’ve spent much time in my journal so I won’t go in to detail here in case it’s an unwelcome topic.
Well I’m terms of accountability on this site, looks like you’ve trained a grand total of 5 times so far this year, time to get to back to it, discipline, not motivation, just force yourself to get to the gym, lie to yourself and tell yourself that if you drive there and don’t feel it after the first set you can leave, then Hotel California that training!
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Yeah, I really wish I’d had some guidance on this first, but I probably wouldn’t have listened to it anyways.
Lesson learned.
A prompt I found in my attempts to define what I want my future to look like:
“What do you want your average Tuesday to be like in 5 years?”
And to describe it in excruciating detail.
Where are you waking up
Who are you waking up next to
What are you doing in the morning, afternoon, evening
Who do you communicate with
How do you feel
What do you have to look forward to
Etc.
The reason for it being an average Tuesday is that there will be far more of these than individual life “highs”.
That’s helped me a good bit so far. Answering these questions for 5 years in the future is far easier than 50 years, and it puts everything into perspective… if I want XYZ to be my average Tuesday, I need to do ABC now for that to happen.
I still don’t have all the answers as to “what do I want from life”, but I know what I want an average Tuesday to look like, and that’s enough for me - for now.
Absolutely. I fell off the horse because I didn’t see the point… knowing what I want my life to look like in 5 years requires that I do this.
Seems dumb, and it is, but I found a good enough reason to get back on the horse. I just have to stick with it.
Thank you for the insight. There’s no topics I’m unwilling to discuss in my log… I would love to help young men grow into good men, and having open and honest conversations for all to see - helps me work towards that.
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Nope. I’ve thrown myself into a few different things but nothing’s really clicked for me. Now I’m getting complacent and it’s pissing me off. What are those books? My nightstand could use some fresh material.
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I think the problem here is, almost all of the modern worlds guidance on this is: “own this, achieve that, do these 5 things” then you’ll be the person you want to be, only it’s empty.
I think almost all young men are the same, we’re naturally pretty hard headed and think we know best, experience is about the only way to get to the realisation.
That’s a good point to start, it’s better than having nothing and ending up here:
But don’t let the starting point be the end, otherwise you’ll wake up on a Tuesday in 5 years time, having achieved what you set out to, yet having the same questions again.
100% agree here, I watched a real life TV program once where this middle age mother was describing how she’d beat alcoholism because of having her son to live for (she’d become an alcoholic after becoming a mother), the problem I saw was that her son at this point was 17, I was thinking to myself, that’s great, but either your son leaves home in a year or two and has his own life, and then what holds you back? Or you place an untenable burden on your children when they are grown. Your children should be a very significant part of your life, the actions you take the way you behave, the way you plan for your future, they are however their own persons and you should be shaping them and moulding them for life without depending on you (or you depending on them). At which point if your purpose and identity is solely wrapped up in them you’re then back to having to redefine yourself, only 20 years older. It’s why the term “empty-nest” exists.
If you’re happy then I’ll start with some 3000 year old wisdom:
“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!” What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.
Ecclesiastes is a book in the bible that on skim reading seems pretty bleak, it’s honest but the the key is that the “teacher” is specifically looking at everything “under the sun”, the upshot is that all of human endeavour, under the sun (which is to say done in our own strength, for our own purposes, outside of our true purpose, which is found in God) is meaningless. In 150 years time, no one under the sun will remember our names, who we were, or what we achieved. I believe that there is a higher purpose and a deeper meaning - Augustine wrote this:
Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.
And the Westminster Shorter Catechism phrases is this way:
Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
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We (most of us) do the best we can for our children. In the end, as I have found, our children find their own route, their own careers, their own husbands/wives/partner. Culturally I think younger adults are less concerned with a family name, or family legacy. However, you sound like at top notch father. Hats off.
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Sorry for the long delay. I needed to get through some of this on my own, and I really wasn’t sure to what end I wanted to respond to this… Giving the title of a book or two is easy, but most of my reading material is not from books, rather men who’ve gone through a similar path that I have and managed through the same struggles I’m having.
There are books that certainly go into this, and I think I’d put The Unchained Man 2.0 at the top of this list.
For me, this book was particularly helpful in making sure that I had my basic lifestyle necessities in order:
I agree with the points made in the book that before a man can orient to his higher purpose, his basic needs must be met first. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs agrees with this as well…
But the Vision chapters in the book were kind of a miss for me. Not because they were lacking, but because I needed different exercises to figure these things out (reference the above “what does your ideal average tuesday look like?” prompt).
This area is difficult for me because I feel drawn to causes that are impossibly great.
I want to help men (and women) transition back to traditionalism in our gender roles, though I’d really only be aiming to help men in this regard.
I want to help push humanity further along it’s path of excellence and supremacy… health, education, expansion, achieving higher levels of consciousness… you get the picture.
So in my perspective, the “orient to higher purpose” conversation is very difficult because they are impossible tasks.
How to get motivated to do impossible tasks? Honestly, I don’t really know lol.
But I do know what I want an average Tuesday to look like in 5 years, and everything that I will need to do if I want that to be a reality - will help me towards becoming the man my impossible tasks require of me.
I have many, MANY, posts from The Red Pill and similar communities that relate to this question, and I’m happy to spam the links if you are interested. It’s a lot of reading - not a book, but helpful if you need to go full autist in breaking some of these subjects down.
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Push
Tuesday, Jan 28, 2025 at 1:23pm
Incline Bench Press (Smith Machine)
“Rest Pause 10-15
3010
+30s extreme stretch”
Set 1: 225 lbs x 9 [Failure]
Set 2: 225 lbs x 3 [Failure]
Set 3: 225 lbs x 2 [Failure]
Butterfly (Pec Deck)
“1xFail + partials
3010
+30s extreme stretch +max flex”
Set 1: 150 lbs x 17 [Failure]
Viking Press
“Rest Pause 20-30
3010”
Set 1: 100 lbs x 12 [Failure]
Set 2: 100 lbs x 5 [Failure]
Set 3: 100 lbs x 3 [Failure]
Lateral Raise (Cable)
“Pulley mid-thigh, partials at length, TS>BDS
3010”
Set 1: 25 lbs x 9 [Failure]
Set 2: 20 lbs x 8 [Failure]
Triceps Dip
“Getting back into it, shoulders feeling funky”
Set 1: 20 reps
Squat (Barbell)
“Upper inside R hamstring got tweaked on last set”
Set 1: 135 lbs x 5
Set 2: 225 lbs x 5
Set 3: 315 lbs x 5
Triceps Extension (Machine)
“Rest Pause 20-30
3010”
Set 1: 140 lbs x 11 [Failure]
Set 2: 140 lbs x 6 [Failure]
Set 3: 140 lbs x 4 [Failure]
@hevyapp
+30mins LISS
I’m realizing my training is too “easy”, so I’m going more along the lines of DC.
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A lot of your training seems to be to failure, so do you want to make it even herder or is this something you are saying as a general thing.
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I mean that for someone who wants to look like an athlete, my training isn’t very athletic.
I need to do more hard stuff, just because it’s hard.
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What do you mean by this? I think Joe Rogan has some ideas, haha.
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Its thinking about thinking.
Level 1: i want this, i need that.
Level 2: i want this, i need that, you want this, you want that.
Level 3: i want this, you want that, lets trade.
Level 4: juat because we can trade, doesn’t always mean that we should trade (ie morals, objective good vs bad, law and order)
Level 5: what i think is good and bad may not be the same as what you think is good and bad
Level 6: if we all have different values based on our own cultures and experiences, who am I to tell you whats good and bad? We should all just do what we want (decay of morals, law and order) we are here
Level 7: i recognize and understand that different people have different values based on their own personal experiences, but without societal norms and restrictions, we are living in utter chaos. Restrictions must be enforced, even knowing some people will feel they are wrong.
Level 8: a more fair set of rules could be imposed if people were grouped by value systems and had their own set of rules that reflected their values, insofar as they did not impact other groups and their values.
Level 9: i recognize myself, my actions, my beliefs as a system of itself, and that everyone else has their own system.
I am my own system, which is part of a system that shares my beliefs and values, which is part of a system that organizes individuals and groups as systems. I am a system, within a system, within a system.
It goes on into evolution and development of each group and level, requiring knowledge of each, in order to work towards a unified group that no longer sees themselves as an individual, rather many versions of who they could have been in different circumstances.
Need we’re degrading as a society because we’re stuck on level 6, where too many people think we should just do whatever we want with no consequences.
If the parents of a child are on level 6, their child will not develop past level 3. We’ve been on level 6 for half a century.
After writing this, I’m about ready to take him up on the offer lol
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But what sort of athlete do you want to look like? I’m assuming more akin to a linebacker than an offensive linesman
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Tbh just a bodybuilder but like actually lean, for once. I do want to be functionally capable and fit as well, which has had me considering BJJ and Boxing too.
Maybe a subjective term but i do consider bodybuilders to be athletes. Classic is really the look I’m after.
Oh for sure, that’s why I asked what type of athlete. If you’d said tennis I’d have been really thrown.
For BJJ definitely start toying with some movements that add in rotational components, not specifically for strength but more for a protective element.
You’ll be significantly stronger than most average dudes, but you’ll also be moving in some unique ways. I don’t mean replace everything with Turkish get ups and stability balls, but working in lateral lunges to warm ups, landmine rotational presses, half kneeling single arm cable rows etc will be gold
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Have you considered that maybe what you want isn’t hard? People who emulate the behavior you want are common, and often you see it in people who haven’t stressed greatly over it. It’s a sign you might be going about it a harder way than you need.
A lot of what you seem to complain about would be well tackled by just having a consistent routine that you’re able to modify. As dumb as it sounds, when was the last time you had a daily to-do list that you checked off item-by-item?