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theintrinsicwarrior · 4 years

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Why Dating Is Not 'Hard'

Being single. Dating. If you are a long term single person (like I am), you either hate it, tolerate it or love it. I’m at a point now where I have grown so much in terms of actualisation, living my truth and facing uncertainty that being a long term single person transformed from being a problem, to a frustration, to acceptance to eventually to a realisation that I have epic opportunities ahead of me if I stay on the path I'm on. I know I just made being single seem like the end of the best Disney movie ever, but I’m not immune to feelings of rejection, loneliness, entitlement and envy. In this post, I want to talk about how the things we tell ourselves in the face of unideal circumstances in the world of dating is absolutely EVERYTHING in regard to your success with the opposite sex. I feel our society puts this area on such an absolute ridiculous pedestal, to the point where people go into depressive episodes, question their self worth, kill other people or even worse: go on ‘Married at First Sight’ (If you don’t live in Australia, MAFS is a cringe reality TV show where contestants who are single get paired up and married with people that a bunch of ‘experts’ consider them the best match for them - it’s on some serious bottom of the barrel type shit!)

Recently I met a girl. I met her in one of my classes at my uni I’m studying with. Long story short - me and her vibed so well, had similar life philosophies and values, got each others humour and besides being super pretty, was a genuine girl who seemed to value personal growth as much as I did. It felt like a great connection. Okay, so logically you’d think "yeah she’s most likely a good match and she would say yes if I made a move". Which I did. Now, I don’t know if it was because I did it over text, after trying to find an opportunity to do it in person (before our class, mind you), but she basically said she "feels a connection, though it's just a friend type of connection at the moment". Yeah, it sucks, but heres the point I want make: what I told myself after that was critical. See, in my past, this has happened a number of times: open up to a girl who I think is awesome and it looks like the universe is finally going to make it happen for once only for the girl to not feel the same way, friend zone me, already has a boyfriend etc. Thats cool because I am at this point now where, because my self worth is not predicated on getting a relationship or not, or any female validation for that matter, I can shrug it off, find the benefits in it and actually get more confidence out of it! Is that not true value? To be vulnerable, get rejected, and just know deep down that you’ll be fine? See, after she friend zoned me, I told myself that this ‘was supposed to happen’. I accepted the fact that this was what happened and this was reality. Rather than fight against it, get all frustrated and entitled like I would have in the past, I plainly accepted it. While it wasn’t ideal in any way, as you can imagine being single for ages and then it seems like it was actually going to happen with a kick-ass girl, its annoying! But, for me to accept it, remind myself that my self worth is not based on whether I have a girlfriend or not is literally life changing! ‘Life changing’ might be a dramatic way to put it but think about it like this: Why do you think all these long term single people go on married at first sight, love island and join matchmaking agencies? It’s because they’re fed up with going on pointless dates, getting in relationships with people and hoping that they will be ’the one’ (don’t get me started on that nonsense of ’the one’) and when that person isn’t the one, they get all frustrated and disappointed. They say "dating is hard!", "Nobody knows how hard dating is!” And that creates even more frustration! That thought process gets transferred into energy which they bring to the next date or person they meet! Why is this such a big deal for these people? Simple - Because their happiness is resting on the fact of whether they have found the one or not. They have spent millennia day dreaming about meeting the right person while forgetting the only relationship that is actually important. They have spent millennia watching their friends get partnered up and always think ‘when is it my turn?’. This is where the frustration comes from: outcome dependency and choosing to interpret each non-ideal result as ’this means dating is hard!’. See, after I got friend zoned, I could have ranted forever (which I have done many times in the past!) and told myself “this is bullshit! This is not fair! What makes other people get it and not me!” I could have easily played the victim card, and believe me, my ego did hit me with some of these thoughts. Instead, I chose to look for the, what I like to call ‘gifts’, in the whole thing. I made a choice to view the good in the situation and to not throw my hands up like ‘I’m the victim, women are all deceptive bitches and dating is a MF!’. This girl now represents a standard (that I won’t comprise on) that I have set for the next girl to come along: some one who values the same things as me and shares similar life philosophies. Some one who is easy to connect with. Some one who gives a f about their mental and physical wellbeing. There's value in that.

I’m more optimistic and confident after being friend zoned and loving it. Why? Because I am honestly grateful for the experience. I have taken the value out of the experience so next time will be even better. I’ve used it as a tool to build confidence not diminish it. Dating isn’t hard. Being single isn’t hard. These things are only a pain in the ass if you constantly tell yourself they’re a pain in the ass.

‘And at some level, you recognise that most of your suffering is self-created. It is created out of your resistance to what is. It is created out of an interpretation of something that is. It comes from a thought, from an interpretation, not from a situation’ -Eckhart Tolle

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theintrinsicwarrior · 4 years

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The ‘Self-Help’ Problem

“Self-Help”. Hearing that term will probably make you think of TED talks, Tony Robbins seminars and meditation. I assume you already know what self help is, but if not, it’s basically a word used to describe a genre of material that involves giving people advice in different areas of life and providing information regarding one’s own self-development and wellbeing. It’s a very broad genre that deals with what it’s name suggests: Helping yourself. In this post I want to talk about the most common trap that people (myself included) often run into with this material. I’ve been on my own journey with this stuff and I will say now that, although there a lot of problems with this material, it can also provide a lot useful tools that are backed up by psychology and scientific recognition. Although it looks like it, this isn’t going to be a biased rant with me bashing this industry with everything I have. In fact, I still use some of the things I’ve learnt from this material in my life today with great results. This will be me talking about the common pitfall people run into with this material and I’ll use my own experience as an example.

First of, let’s break down this term “Self-Help”. This word implies that you: your self, needs ‘help’. It implies that you have a problem and need help with it. That you are not good right now and that you need help make yourself good. You have an issue with yourself, so logically, you need ’self help’. Off to a great start, right? Let’s paint a picture to illustrate my point here. Imagine a guy. This guy’s name is Luke. Luke has a severe case of social anxiety, realises it and begins reading self help books on how to overcome social anxiety. Logical right? Luke reads these books, feels motivated and decides to go to a bar and talk to people. He gets to the bar and his mind is going blank and crazy at the same time. He sits down anxiously while looking for a group or person to approach. As time goes by his anxiety increases, nerves are on overdrive and starts to sweat heavily. His heart is going faster than Usain bolt. His entire physiology is saying ‘this is scary, we have to get out of here!’. He tells himself ’this is a mistake, I can’t do this’ and decides to go home. He drives home with what feels like a tidal wave of shame and regret to come over him. Thoughts of self-doubt overwhelm him at the same time. After these thoughts and feelings, he thinks: ‘maybe those books I read were shit?’, ‘maybe I should try looking at some better stuff on Youtube?’. So he does. He watches some random YouTube videos that deal with social anxiety and once again, gets motivation to go out and approach people. You already know what happens. He once again feels overwhelmed by anxiety, wimps out, drives home with shameful feelings, only to seek out more self help material. Maybe he goes into depression, thinking he will never ‘beat’ his anxiety. Whats actually happening here is his belief that his social anxiety is a problem is reinforcing itself, ultimately affecting how he views himself. He never stops to say: ‘what if having social anxiety is OK and in the end, that makes me OK?’ What if Luke takes a second to stop trying to change himself, stops trying to find the perfect book on how to ‘fix’ himself and just accept himself? Howbowdeh!? This is the common problem I’m talking about: The lack of unconditional self-acceptance. Right now I’m studying Psychology & Counselling and I’ve learnt some interesting things about therapy and different therapeutic modalities. So far, my favourite psychologist I’ve learnt about is Carl Rogers. My guy Carl Rogers founded a modality in counselling known as ‘Person centred therapy’. It is based around many principles but one of them is a condition known as ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’. This refers to the therapist unconditionally accepting the client as they are, as opposed to accepting them under certain conditions. His theory here was that if the therapist demonstrates unconditional acceptance to the client, they are likely to accept themselves which would allow them to comprehend their issues effectively. I’ve personally experienced this when I went to see a psychologist, seen video footage of sessions where this is demonstrated and read about it in countless text books. I’d say it works! So let’s go back to the example of Luke. If Luke did end up accepting himself unconditionally, and accepted that being socially anxious is fine and that he doesn’t need to be ‘fixed', wouldn’t he be more likely to feel comfortable in social situations? Right now, he’s basically telling himself “being socially anxious is a problem and therefore I cannot be myself” His entire self concept revolves around trying to be confident in social situations, which always reinforces the idea that he isn’t when he becomes anxious. The thing I want to express most here is that, once upon a time, I was Luke. I mean, my social anxiety was not as extreme as his, but it still caused me to struggle with confidence and self-esteem. I would read book after book, article after article, trying to ‘fix myself’. I worked overtime to become the super confident, extroverted badass who everybody liked and was friends with and repressed any uncomfortable emotions I’d feel regarding my awkwardness. Among other issues, it led to me getting depression symptoms and motivated me to see a therapist to find out why I was bombarded with negative thoughts and emotions. Turns out, accepting myself was all I had to freaking do! Though, accepting your imperfections is far from the easiest thing in the world, it was easily one of the most liberating things I could have ever done. The message here? You don’t need to be fixed! There’s nothing wrong with you! I don’t care if you’ve been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, PTSD and OCD. I don’t care if you literally shit your pants every time you go to a party where you know people. Realise there’s nothing to fix or work on. There’s no magic book, article, seminar, life coach, weekend retreat, TED talk, meditation routine, NLP course or YouTube video that is going to make you ’normal'! Realise those imperfections make you incredible, unique and great. Own that aspect of yourself, retrain your mind to see the greatness in your imperfections and watch progress unfold (and all the money you’ll save!).

Another thing I want speak on regarding self help is two mindsets: The first one is this “just be positive and say 10 affirmations in the mirror every morning” mindset’. The second is the “just be confident and you’ll get everything you want in your life” type ideology the general majority of self help content preaches. Every second self help book, article, YouTube video will pump you with this idea that if you are feeling negative emotions and don’t feel confident in yourself, the answer is simple: focus on the positive! Duh! Feeling depressed about losing your job, your dog dying and your recent break-up? Simple! Just say positive affirmations like “I am good enough and deserve everything good in life” every morning in the mirror while smiling because that will make you happy! Problem solved! Happy days, come at me! If you can’t tell by the tone here, I’m being sarcastic. For you to tell someone who is depressed and has a hopeless outlook in life to just say some positive things, focus on the positive to try and change their feelings is counter-productive. The more that person tries to focus on being positive, the more they are reminded that they’re depressed and have negative thoughts, making it worse! To focus on what you ‘don’t have' in order to get away from what you have right now is going to only reinforce a ‘scarcity mindset’. It’s you saying “I don’t have this thing right now and I need it to be OK with myself”. It’s going back to what I said in the previous paragraph: Rejecting your current state as not being good enough just reinforces your current state as not being good enough even more. It becomes a paradox: The more you reject a negative state of being, the more it will persist. Oooh, don’t you love paradoxes?! Negative states of being are one of those things that need to be experienced and embraced, no matter how uncomfortable they are. They need to be accepted (there’s that word again!). You ask anyone who has been through an epically painful experience and they will likely say something along the lines of: "It was hard to go through that, but I’m thankful I did because it made me stronger/better/confident etc.” Ok, that might be a generalisation, but I’ve heard this enough times from others and tell myself this all the time regarding certain experiences. So now the bullshit “acting confident even if you’re not is the ticket to kicking ass in life” mindset. Before I go into this, can I just say, confidence has to be one of the most ambigous concepts regarding human behaviour. How do you measure confidence? What does a confident person act like? These questions plagued me in a good portion of my 20’s. At one point, I came to a conclusion that confidence is measured by how much you talk. It’s how extraverted you act in social scenarios. It’s how much you can prove you don’t care. It’s how indifferent you are in relation to things happening to you, good or bad. I walked around for a good 7-8 years believing this. Can you blame me? Our society pumps us with this notion that confidence is basically you being overly sure of yourself, super-talkative and indifferent on an obnoxious scale. Yeah, that’s what confidence is! Of course! Thank you society! If I went to parties or a social gathering and acted like that (which I have, mind you!), you best believe people are going to cringe so hard their facial muscles will be getting a workout! For self help to communicate the repetitive message of ’the key is to just be confident’ is stupid on too many levels to even fathom. In my experience, confidence come's from failing over and over, till you reach the point where you have experience and just know what to do - because you’ve done it a million times. Note the keyword in that last sentence: Failing. Another keyword: Experience. If we want to make a logical formula for confidence it would go something like: Repeated failure = Experience = Confidence. Howbowdeh!? "But I want examples, Aden!” Of course you do. When I started taking exercise seriously, I went through a period of 4-5 years where I would: Lose the weight I wanted, get too comfortable with food, put on more than weight I lost before, get motivated again and repeat the cycle. At first I wasn’t ‘confident’ in how to lose weight. There were so many things that contributed to weight loss that it confused me: What types of food do I eat? how much of it do I have? What exercises do I need to do? . I repeated this cycle where I would get success and inevitably ‘fail’ enough times to the point where I just knew I could lose weight if I ever put it on again. Cut calories, salt, sugar, dense carbs. Have lower portion meals and increase high intensity cardio mixed with some muscle building workouts. In the formula, It would look like: Gain weight (Repeated Failure) = Learn how to lose weight (Experience) = Confidence in losing weight/gaining muscle. All of this can be summed up by saying: "Get comfortable with failing and you’ll become confident". Repeating that: You’ll ‘become’ confident. As in, you’ll just be confident and not have to worry about whether you are or not. Self help says: "You’ll become confident when you start ACTING like it”. See that word? Acting? That implies that you're not confident, so if you have to act confident, that reinforces the reality that you’re not confident. Awesome, my guy. Go through life like that and see what happens. ‘Fake it till you make it’ is the common saying. "But Aden, failing over and over just to be confident is going to be hard, draining, not to mention it will take forever!" I get it. Obviously, failing over and over again is not easy. It’s not sexy. It’s not quick and convenient . If there’s one thing self help content will try to sell you is ‘quick and convenient’, short term tactics to get results. My hypothesis? You already know. Be happy with failing. Treat failures as essential lessons for 'next time’. Learn ’the hard way’. Extract the ‘gift' out of every experience, good or bad. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

To sum up this whole post: First, Accept yourself and negative states unconditionally, other wise you’ll end up chasing a false illusion of happiness. Second, learn things the hard way: Through honest experience and taking the lessons from those experiences to gain confidence, as opposed to copying what you perceive a confident person does. I’ll also take this time to say that, while most self-help can border around the naive and unrealistic, I’d recommend looking into authors that are categorised as ’self help’ but are actually geared towards the things I spoke about in this post - self acceptance and congruence. Mark Manson, the author of a book you’ve probably seen in book shops called ’The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***’, is probably one of the most popular to reject these notions of obnoxious, positivity escapism and incongruent confidence ideas. The Subtle Art and his book for men regarding dating and relationships titled Models have been key since I’ve practiced self-acceptance and let go of toxic self help ideology.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”

- Carl Rogers

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theintrinsicwarrior · 4 years

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The ‘Illusion’ of Hot Women

Yes, you read the title right. I believe that hot women are an illusion. You either have a curiosity about this opinion or a resistance to it. "Aden, what type of drugs are you on right now!? In what world do hot girls not exist? Maybe you’re spending too much time on Oxford street on a Saturday night!” I can imagine these are the thoughts of a guy reading this. I get it. Before I get into this, I just want to say that some of the things I say in this post may cause you to feel uncomfortable due to the way guys are wired to think in society today. It will probably challenge your perception of how attractive women appear in your reality. It might take the fun out of ‘hot girls' for you, and if thats something you don’t want, I’d advise you to stop reading now. If you’re a guy who goes around rating women on a scale of 1-10 and you’re not willing to be a little open minded to different view on that, same thing, stop reading. If you’re open minded and are genuinely curious about what I have to say about this, let’s go!

What’s your definition of a 'hot girl’? If I go and ask some random guy on the street this, he will probably tell me something like ‘are you serious? a girl who is sexy, of course!’ Or ‘a girl who is super glammed up, takes care of her appearance’ Basically he’s going to give a very vague answer that is probably subjective to his personal tastes. He might give me references of celebrities he finds attractive, or an ex girlfriend or current girlfriend. We don’t think about (or maybe I do, clearly!) what it is that really makes a girl ‘hot’. My argument here is that, what if beauty is contextual? What if that ‘hot girl’ you see walking in a bikini down Bondi beach is your own perception based on the circumstances, behaviour and several other factors? Picture this scene (trust me, you’ll like it if you’re a guy!): A young, blonde girl, maybe around age 21 walks up to you while you’re at a table in a restaurant with your friends. She’s wearing a low cut top on with tight jean shorts. Make up is done perfectly. Smells like every perfect smell to ever exist and has an adorable, polish accent. Her hair is shiny and straight as can be, ending at her lower back. She sits next to you, introduces herself and starts flirting with you. Her facial expressions are seductive. The way she touches your arm as she laughs at something you said in your story is equivalent to everything good in life. The way her eyes light up when you tell her that you’re into surfing or basketball or any sport you like. Got the picture? Of course you do! Obviously, you as a man are going to be like "am I dreaming right now? Why is this happening?” But let me flip it. Imagine that same girl, but this time her hair is all frizzy and clearly not washed and she has no make up on. Her breath reeks and her B.O is assaulting your nostrils like no tomorrow. She’s wearing an oversized hoodie with long baggy pants. She introduces herself but doesn’t say anything after that and sit’s next to you awkwardly, while you look at your buddies awkwardly, with you decaying in the uncomfortableness of it all. So I ask you, is that second girl still hot? It’s the same girl! Are all the thoughts you had about the first version of that girl going to be the same with the second version? Think about that. You see, we don’t take into account the different things that go into a ‘hot girl’. Yeah, its abit of a bummer isn’t it? Let’s use porn stars as another example. (Disclaimer: If you love porn and don’t want to think about what goes into it all, or want it to be ruined for you, once again, stop here). Besides cringe worthy acting, what you’re seeing in those videos is the result of quality lighting, precise make up work, a ‘porn star persona', different angle shots, different takes, exaggerated sex sounds, the ‘bow-chicka bow-wow’ music, and video filters. Editing! Thats what your seeing! If you see those women in a different context, without those things, ‘hot’ probably won’t be the word you’ll be using. ‘Good looking?' Yeah, maybe. ‘Attractive?’ Maybe. It’s going to be a noticeable difference, thats for sure. This applies to instagram models, magazine models, movie stars etc. you get the idea. “Geez! Thanks for being a downer, Aden! Why can’t you be normal, not overthink this and just be a freaking guy!” Yes, I know you might be thinking something along those lines. Allow me to break it down. A common thing I see in young men and in myself when I was younger, is a natural tendency to put women who are ‘hot’ on a pedestal. The psychological pedestal where, because a girl has a 'banging body’, is ’fine as a dime’ or some other cringe expression for a physically appealing girl, she is worshipped. She is the equivalent to that of a celebrity, even if she isn’t one. She is the ticket to your clout boost or status upgrade if you can ‘get her’. You’ll be swimming in the validation of everybody within eye distance of you and her together. Why? Because she looks a certain way in a certain CONTEXT. She’s that girl who every guy is shooting his shot with at the night club. The famous insta-model (who probably uses facetune) posting ass shots everyday and has pathetic men frothing in her comment sections and DM’s. The ‘hottest girl’ in your year 12 class, or maybe even the school. Are you starting to see it? If you don’t, its so simple: Stop acting like women who you ‘perceive’ as hot as being celebrities and trophies to obtain, knowing that ‘hotness’ is all in your mind! It’s subjective. It’s contextual. It’s an Illusion.

Another thing I want to speak on, and I’ve done it myself, is this universal rating system from 1-10 guys use to ‘rate’ a girl. “The girl I went on date with the other day? She was a 6.5. She’s alright, but I’d kill for that 9.4 who works in marketing, I heard she’s single!” Yeah… Hearing that in person you’d swear you’re in a maths class for crying out loud!. The issue I have with this is literally the same thing as the whole ‘hotness’ thing I was talking about in the previous paragraph: Pedestals and this unconscious desire to acquire these ‘hot’ women for some external validation. As you can imagine, a ‘7.4’ gets treated and viewed differently to a ‘4.3’ (obviously!) And the ultra rare ’10’? Shiiiiiiiiiet! You better be coming with that 1988, Michael Jordan-type game to get her, my guy! This is also where the whole notion of ‘leagues’ comes in: “I like Anna, but she’s a straight 9 and I’m only a 6. I can’t do it. She’s out of my league bro!” Listen to that life-changing confidence! Like, what makes a ’10’ any different to a ‘5’? Are they a different species? Do they have different operating manuals? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging here. As I said before, I used to behave like this. In fact, I used to be worse than this! I had my own ‘special’ rating system that was based off video resolutions. That’s right, I used to walk around, look at girls and say “she’s a 1080p!” Or “She’s only 720p, but has potential to be 8k” and had the nerve to call myself a human being! So besides the pedestals and objectifying of women, this behaviour also leads to men having near impossible standards for their dating lives. So you can believe that my standards were all kinds of stupid, having a stupid ass rating system. You can believe that I was never satisfied and blew so many great opportunities, all because of this ridiculous mindset. So that ‘5’ you went on a date with, you thought was ‘alright', could honestly have a personality that you can actually vibe with if you just looked past that massive 5 you put where her face is. You can actually be happier, more satisfied and content with women when you remove these dumb ass rating systems and select women based off a ‘yes’ or ’no’ approach. This how it works: You see a girl and if you’d like to get to know her, feel attracted, be with her or whatever, then she’s a ‘yes’. If not, she’s a ’no’. Simple. She gets viewed as a person who may or may not be into you as well, as opposed to a ‘rating’. This ‘yes’ or ’no’ system has done wonders for me personally: A guy who was rating women as video resolutions at one point! I now am able to look past a woman’s appearance, attempt to connect with her on a genuine level and not get caught up in looks! And not have it be life or death for my ego! Howbowdeh! You know what else is great? When you genuinely connect with a girl over conversation and get to know her, no matter what her appearance, she has the potential to become 'better looking’. It’s this strange phenomenon I’ve recently found since adopting the ‘yes/no’ system. I call it the ’Shallow Hal effect’. If you don’t know that reference, watch the movie Shallow Hal, trust me, you’ll love it! The main character in the movie, Hal, is literally the personification of the modern day, Instagram-model worshipping, sad-case, no self worth, thirsty man. Before he gets hypnotised by Tony Robbins to see the inner beauty of every girl, he’s exactly like the men I described above: Chasing the ‘hot girls’ because how a girl looks is a reflection of his own need for validation. So to sum up this post: What you perceive as ‘hot’ is all contextual and based off your personal rating system, which is likely to make you put women on a pedestal and limit your potential to have decent interactions, relationships and sincere joy with them. Before I finish this post, please don’t think I’m some sort of asexual weirdo who has a problem with good looking women and think they’re overrated. Don’t think I was rejected by countless hot girls and now I’m bitter and resentful because of it. Believe me, I absolutely love women and how they look. In fact, I think looks do sincerely matter and should be appreciated; Just not to the point where you put a girl on pedestal, temporarily change your personality in her presence and treat her like a celebrity just because she has a nice dress on, perfect make up and puts on a ‘sexy girl’ persona. In saying that (and quoting Drake): “Know yourself, know your worth”

‘Your impressions of a woman’s beauty do not define who she is, they define who you are’ -Unknown

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theintrinsicwarrior · 4 years

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My Problem with the “Alpha Male”

Hey guys! So I hope my last post on uncertainty was somewhat interesting, I really enjoyed writing it and being able to express my thoughts on this reality that I think is huge for us as human beings to embrace: the benefits and possibilities of the unknown. In this post I want to talk about something that has really bugged me for a long time, and it’s the internet’s obsession with the “Alpha Male”. I’m going to try my hardest to not turn this into an overly biased rant, even though it is something that really makes me cringe on an epic scale. At the end, to illustrate my point, I’ll be using one of my favourite characters as a case study: Iron Man and his alter ego Tony Stark. For all the people who don’t give two shits about superhero’s or anything close, chill. A basic run down of the character’s origin and how it relates to the alpha male concept is all you're going to get. I know you were probably like ‘yeah, I’m skipping that Aden!’. It’ll make sense. Trust me.

If you type 'alpha male' into YouTube or Google, what you’re going to find is many corny video’s with title’s like “10 Traits an Alpha Male Has”, “How to stop being BETA and start being ALPHA”, “How to be the Dominant Alpha Male in ANY situation”, with a thumbnail of some male model in a clean-cut suit or James Bond next to an angry gorilla beating his chest. All these videos and articles more or less communicate the same general, toxic message: “To be happy as a man you need to be an over-dominant asshole who doesn’t take shit from anybody, who’s value is measured by how many supermodel's he’s slept with and how much bank he makes". Also communicated: “If you’re not this, you will basically be a worthless beta male who is doomed to a life of playing video games in your mum’s basement”. Awesome. Just awesome. So, because I let people finish their sentences, don’t sleep with a different FHM model every night of the week and make less than $20k my life is worthless? Damn! Guess I need to walk around and start calling myself 'Alpha’ and acting like a douche! So you probably get the idea I’m trying to communicate here: Telling men to be an asshole who doesn’t care about anything but money, status and getting laid is stupider than people getting emotional over toilet paper! But actually my point here is: what about young men who have a low self esteem, no real life experience who don’t know any better and actually believe this? What about the guys on the comment section of these videos saying things like “My whole life has been playing video games and not getting what I want. I’m 22 now with a shitty job. Never had a girlfriend and still a virgin. I know I need to man up and focus on getting a lifestyle like blah blah blah..” This is what concerns me. See, when I was in my early 20’s and I hadn’t no experience with women (except being friend zoned), no work or life experience and no real idea of who I ‘really was’; To see these type of video’s would have me be believing this type of thing. I was lucky that back then YouTube was not as huge as it is now and the whole alpha male obsession has really only been a major thing in the last few years. Back then, I know if watched videos about being an alpha, I probably would have adopted that mentality. Because I didn’t know any better, I would have not challenged these toxic views and formed my own opinion. All throughout my early twenties I really struggled with what confidence actually is, what women actually mean to me (and what they want) and what it is that I actually value. Do you think if I adopted the toxic alpha male archetype I would have any sort of genuine self-esteem? Probably not. What would have happened is I would have spent countless hours, days and years seeking internal validation from the opposite sex through meaningless sex: a form of external validation. I would have struggled with trying to become ‘rich’ (also external validation) and have had to deal with backstabbers, conditional relationships, health problems and sleepless nights. All for what? Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that having one night stands, being an entrepreneur or starting a business is a bad thing; my point is what type of validation are you actually seeking? It’s no surprise that the self perceived ‘beta male’; The guy who has a minimum wage job at McDonalds, still a virgin at 22 and play’s video games religiously, believes that he needs to embody this ridiculous archetype. At the end of the day, this guy is not validating himself internally. He believes he needs the external validation in order to validate himself.

Tony Stark, before he becomes Iron Man, is exactly like the archetype I described above. He’s a flashy billionaire, being the CEO of a successful weapons company. He is a charming and charismatic guy who has model’s on tap. While being an engineering genius in developing advanced weapons tech for his company, he’s also an egocentric douche who finds joy in partying and living by the bottle. Long story short, he get’s kidnapped by Afghan insurgents who force him to build a weapon for their terrorist means. Kept in a concentration camp like environment with another prisoner who save’s his life after nearly dying, Tony (being a genius engineer), builds a suit of armour to help him and the prisoner escape. After the other prisoner sacrifices himself to help him escape, Tony realises what’s actually important to him, realises the value of a life and see’s how his ‘alpha male lifestyle’ really meant nothing. After he comes home, he builds an advanced version of the armour and becomes the hero ‘Iron Man’. He becomes a valued superhero who helps saves countless lives (with some other superhero buddies, of course!) and inspires many because he knows the true value of life (and also because his armour is frickin’ awesome and bad ass!). It’s this brush with death that forces him to be humble, discover a true purpose and transcend his ego to a higher state of being. I love this origin because it represent’s how much better a life with meaning has over toxic alpha male values. So my question is: which version of Tony would you rather be? The ‘alpha’, shallow, live fast-die young version? Or the hero who understands his purpose and knows that it has meaning? I don’t know about you, but I know which version of Tony I’d like to model my life over.

“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootless, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will tend the hardest monuments of pride”

- William James

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theintrinsicwarrior · 4 years

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The ‘Benefits’ of Uncertainty

Hey guys! So here is my first official post on this blog, and surprisingly, it’s not to do with men’s emotional wellbeing although it’s something that I think can relate to it. This is something that I’m currently learning about and experiencing in my life as we speak... Uncertainty. It’s that feeling that can make you say to yourself: “what the actual F is going to happen now!?”, or “Geeez, I hope this is not as scary as It seems!” All while your body slowly gets overwhelmed by physiological reactions to what ‘might’ happen. As I am writing this, the world is literally going in a state of panic over the Coronavirus. Sounds like the perfect time to write about Uncertainty, don’t you think? So let me define what uncertainty is first, for all those who may be hardcore academics and need a definition (I’m studying at the moment and have an understanding of how anal academic folk can be! Anyone who has studied anything feels what I’m saying!). So, the definition: "Uncertainty refers to epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown" Thanks to wikipedia for that definition (The one time I can reference wikipedia and not have anybody shit all over it!). The last word of that definition: “Unknown”, stands out to me. All through our lives, we go through changes. Changes create a sense of the “Unknown”. “Anything” can happen. It’s these things that have the potential to create fear and feelings of anxiety within us, to the point where we can’t handle it, avoid decisions and it becomes problematic for our daily lives. I want to share my personal example of uncertainty and also certainty, because I think both sides are equally important. Recently, I resigned from my full time job as a storeperson. I had been working at this company since 2012, so nearly eight years now. The thing with this job was that, while it provided me with money and a routine, there were countless times I knew I had to quit and pursue something else. You might already know the answer to “why didn’t you just resign earlier”, and yes, the answer is obviously uncertainty. The ambiguity of uncertainty created a deep sense of fear and worry within me, mainly revolving around “what if the next job is worse than this, I’m actually comfortable here!”, and “what if I don’t get paid as much as I do here, then I’d struggle to pay for anything”. These “what if's” kept circulating till inevitably my focus changed, time went by and my wellbeing slowly started declining and my growth was stifled. Which leads me to my next point: Because I was at this job for over five years, I knew how to do most of the things there. I knew almost everyone. Conversations with people were the ‘same’. Team meeting content was the ‘same’. Experiences were always the ‘same’. This is called ‘Certainty’. When you go through life having the same experiences, handling it the same way every time it creates a comfort zone. If you know anything about comfort zones, you’d know that its the place where growth is surpressed and limitations are built. Back to my example: It was late December, 2019 when I was at work, early in the morning and was about to put way some stock. All I can remember was this profound blasé feeling pass through my body. The thought of me going to another mundane stock location to put away another mundane product that I had been around for years and could not care any less about had me fed up. It was this moment. This profound feeling that had my entire physiology screaming: ‘ADEN! SERIOUSLY!? NO MORE! THIS IS STRAIGHT UP DEPRESSING!’ was enough for me to respond and make the decision. Those underlying ‘what if’s’ that plagued me for years before now took a back seat to what I actually valued: my mental health, my own personal growth and my career studies. Long story short, after many conversations regarding whether I had ‘thought it through’, I did it. I decided that I would focus on my studies full time and work part time somewhere else. I put in my resignation and decided to face the unknown. Ok, so right now I’m going to flex my three semesters worth of a psychology degree I’ve done so far (I think I’ve earned it!). When we think about the major life decisions we have to make, our minds tend to go into what’s known as a ’negativity bias’. This is our brains tendency to only focus on negative aspects of things and discount the positive. Psychologists believe it's an exaggerated version of a defence mechanism our species used for survival back in our caveman days, which makes sense: stress about a potential threat (a hungry sabre tooth, for example) could effect the chance of the tribe surviving. This is where the ‘what if (insert something irrationally negative here) happens’ type thoughts are coming from. But the trick I’ve learnt is to challenge this. When that irrationally negative thought presents itself, we have every opportunity to question the validity of that thought. So for example: you have the thought ‘What if my boss didn’t approve my leave and now I can’t get time off for my holiday’. We have every chance to question that and say ‘okay, how do we know for sure they haven’t approved it?’ And ‘whats stopping me from finding out if they’ve approved it or not’. Rather than dwell in ‘what if my boss didn’t…’ and jump to conclusions, we can evaluate the validity of this thought, leading us more than likely to a place of control or no control. It’s this mentality that helped me put those ‘what if’s’ behind me because I could always flip it and come back with a ‘what if I’m happier being out of this job because I’ll have more time to do things that actually matter to me?’ Or ‘what if the part time job I get pays better than this job?’ (Which was the case!). The entire point of this post is not to tell stories about my experience or to show off my ‘sophisticated’ psych knowledge (I already know you’re impressed!); I wanted to really express the ‘benefits’ of uncertainty. Like I expressed before, if our lives are filled with too much certainty, it creates a comfort zone which negates any sort of profound growth to be experienced. The example of me going to the same job for years, having the same experiences with little to no difference makes it very easy to fear the unknown after some point. The risk we take when we look into the unknown and say ’screw you! I’m not afraid of you, I deserve better and I know that everything will some how work out!’ Is one of the greatest things we can ever do for ourselves, especially when fear is in our ear. In the time I am writing this, it has been over a month and a half since quitting my job and I can safely say that my wellbeing has dramatically increased (just like I knew it would!). The ‘catastrophic’ events that my ego liked to show me pretty much never happened. The experiences I’ve had so far were things I was wishing for when I was working; wishing to be in a classroom learning about something I truly love and connecting with like minded people. Now, I cannot fathom working a 9-5 job doing something that I have zero interest in. This is what facing the unknown did for me: It helped me connect me to my values even more to the point where it was so much more clearer (I value a meaningful career/job more than money) in turn, building some level of confidence. What I wish for you as the reader is to really challenge your negative thoughts about the unknown, which might be affecting an important decision you know you should be making! You never truly know until you make that move. Until you do, your liberation from fear will be harder to achieve. It will be harder to see the potential happiness you could have. Last thing I wanted to share with you is a reference from one of my favourite ‘Black Panther’ stories that I think is relevant to this talk of uncertainty. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a die-hard fanatic of this character and he means a tremendous amount to me (which is a whole other post on its own!), so get used to seeing a whole lot more references!. Here, in the ’Secret Invasion’ storyline, the shapeshifting aliens known as the ’Skrulls’ have attempted to invade Wakanda (Black Panther’s fictional homeland in Africa). They genetically engineered a Skrull that was trained from birth to face the King and protector of Wakanda; He who wears the mantle of the Black Panther. The genetically engineered Skrull taunts my guy T’Challa (Black Panther) by saying: “I have trained my entire life to face you”. King T’Challa says right back to him: “Then you have already lost, for I have trained my entire life to face the unknown”. Bad-ass as that quote is, this is something we can reflect on in terms of how we approach our lives. The Skrull that taunts him can be viewed as our negative thoughts and our fear, and all we need to have is Panther's attitude: “You have already lost, because I face the unknown”

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