Control

“A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls”.

Proverbs 25:28

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger”.

James 1:19

You have seen men who cannot control themselves. They lose their temper like children; they are a disgrace to what we call masculine. There is no honor in losing control of anything, much less our own selves. All we can truly control is ourselves. We control the way we respond to the way others act. 

There is plenty in life that we can control, and there is plenty that we cannot. Of those things that are under our control, we have an obligation to be masters of them. Our emotions don’t rule us, we rule our emotions. Boys are carried away by emotion. Men command themselves at all times. 

To control oneself is to have mastery over the body and the mind. To relinquish control of all outside events, recognizing that they are beyond our ability to affect, is the mark of a man. There is a stoic principle that states one should not worry about anything that one is not directly controlling. If you are not controlling it, why worry about it?

Mantra

If I can’t control it, I don’t stress about it.

Control

Application

Dozens of events happen everyday that are outside of our ability to command. How coworkers act, how people will drive, what the law of entropy will bring about. 

Practice not worrying about the smallest things first. If you can master controlling stress, controlling yourself in small endeavors, you can command yourself in large ones. If bad drivers really get under your skin, practice being aware that you are not in control of the situation. 

Road rage is an opportunity for personal improvement. When you feel yourself getting angry when driving, become aware of it. Then just build on that awareness. Say to yourself, “Men do not lose command of themselves because of small annoyances”. Do not expect overnight results. You have spent years being angry on the road, you are not going to improve yourself in one day of effort.

If you are not in command of an event, do not let it bother you. Tell yourself that it is not bothering you. Thoughts eventually become reality. Action becomes habit. Build your character and strength through thought.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

Commitment

Commitment is a decaying attribute of men of the world.

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”

Psalm 37:5

Very few people are truly committed to the Church. Most are just there because it is tradition passed down from generation to generation. The tradition is maintained because it is easy. There are no real trials, no pressing threats, nothing that makes it difficult to be “Christians”. 

Because of this, there is very little real commitment in the Church. People are committed to the Church in the same way that people are committed to spin class. They come into worship and “do it” because it makes them feel good, but if they had to face a real struggle for one second on account of their faith, they would leave. 

Men are barely committed to their wives. They are more committed to watching football on Saturday than they are to building their marriage. These men are more committed to their morning television than to relationships.

They are more intimate with sports than with their wives. This is a disgrace. 

The ease of life in the modern world has made it so that commitment is not necessary anymore. No one has to make a long-term commitment to anything. Every problem can be fixed quickly with a few “easy” payments of $19.95. 

Men commit for good while the beta commits based on his emotional feelings at the time. As soon as the task becomes difficult, the beta quits. As soon as true challenge presents itself to the masses, the betas are purged. 

The man commits for the long term. Man commits to action every day without fail. The man commits to work every day on a goal worth achieving, and in doing so he sets an example for men to come. The man who commits is a man among betas. 

Mantra

Men never fail their commitments.

Commitment.

Application

The action does not have to be huge, it just requires commitment. Getting to the gym and doing just three sets of an exercise every day is more than you have been doing before. Commit to keep your habits every day, without fail, and then over time build on them and make them longer. Consistency is more important than being a flash in the pan. 

Write down the habits you want to build. After this, look at your habits and pick the easiest one to start. Look at that habit and figure out what action you could take right now towards that goal and start doing it. If you want to start reading your Bible, read small sections instead of jumping immediately into one of those “read your Bible in a year” programs. As great as those are, right now you may not have the discipline or commitment necessary to to maintain that much reading. Focus on small blocks of reading instead. If your Bible has heading, read one chunk from heading to heading. Be consistent in the reading every day. That is much better than not reading at all.

Be consistent in the tiny details of life if you want success. Be a man of commitment.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Youth

“Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

1 Timothy 4:12

“Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.”

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Youth is the painful transition from childhood to adulthood. In the minds of the youth, life goes from bad to worse. Childhood was great, adolescence is uncomfortable, and adulthood is a living nightmare. Where is all the joy that the Church talks about?

This realization that for most people life goes downhill causes the youth up to making all kinds of errors. Youth is a chance to get ahead of everyone around you, but most young people squander it. Instead of trying to make progress, most young men try to dilute the pain of becoming adults. They try to make everything they experience less painful and more pleasurable. It is as if the id resurfaces to be just as prominent as it was when they were toddlers. Chances are that young men who try to take the edge off early will continue on that habit.

Remember: Weak men take the edge off. Strong men get the edge
All around you, males are wasting their time. 

They chase girls to no profitable end. 

They squander hours on social media. 

Males waste weeks looking at porn. 

They attempt moronic stunts in order to climb the dominance hierarchy. 

For these reasons, any and all progress you make in your own life puts you light years ahead of the competition. 

You don’t waste your time. 

You get up early and read or write. 

Every day you train your body. 

Every day you train your mind. 

You practice your instruments and you study. 

Consistently you gain knowledge and wisdom. 

You memorize huge portions of scripture. 

Over time this constructive use of time will add up to be the differential between a failed beta male in a pew, and you – a masculine Spartan Christian. All the incredibly masculine men you look up to are nothing more than the cumulative result of the small masculine actions they have taken. They took good action early in life and ended as an inspiration.

Most males take poor action and are forgotten or despised. You must be a man. It is your responsibility to be disciplined and focused at all times. You must never give any room or foothold to the devil. You must be masculine always. Do not waste your youth. Get ahead of the curve. Be a man.

Mantra

Get the edge while there is time

youth

Application

Most likely you wasted your youth. There is still time for improvement. Never get to a point in life where you look back and wish you had spent your time in a wiser manner and as a result you never change anything in the present moment.

If you are young, get to work right now. You have time on your side in developing key traits of character and manhood that most never develop. The traits and characteristics outlined in this book are idealistic descriptions of the most masculine man possible. 

Apply lessons and ideals. 

Read books. 

Gain knowledge. 

Build skill. 

Acquire marketable ability. 

Gain one positive, masculine characteristic at a time. Once the masculine trait is automated, then you add another. This is how you use youth to your advantage. This is how you use any time to your advantage. Take advantage of the compound interest of a well invested youth. You must always make progress, this is mandatory. 

Conduct Yourselves Like Men.

Thanksgiving

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18

“I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.”

Psalm 7:17

Thankfulness is rooted in humility, because it takes a humble person to realize that he is not solely responsible for all the good he has acquired in his life. A Higher Power aided him, and to this Power man must give thanks. 

The root of thanksgiving is awareness. It can be difficult to be thankful if you don’t realize how much you have. If you exist in the modern world, you are blessed.

It can also be difficult to be thankful because it just seems cheesy. This is due to the way thanksgiving has been twisted towards emotionalistic liberalism. Thanksgiving is not an emotion. Emotions are for children. Radical Liberalism is for the beta. Radical Conservatism is for the beta. Thankfulness based in humility is for Men.

Thanksgiving is conscious awareness for what one has, and gratitude that one has it.

Mantra

I am aware of my good fortune, and I appreciate it. 

Thanksgiving

Application

Take an inventory of the things that matter to you. Take inventory of your favorite things in life and think about them. When you think about these things, appreciation and thankfulness for them eventually emerges. These things do not have to be physical. Look at everything you have been given, and at how little others have been given, and it is difficult not to be thankful. 

Take inventory of things in your life that you cannot control and that have aided you. If you were born into a great family or in a great country, that is a  blessing. If your parents know great people and have good connections, that is a blessing. 

Take inventory of all the situations that have gone your way in life. As humans we tend to focus on the negative things that happen to us. We forget all the times that things have gone our way. The only way to change this habit is to start being aware of when anything goes our way. 

Be grateful for every single tiny thing that goes your way in life. Let nothing slip by unnoticed. Immediately give thanks to God when you do notice your blessings. Be wise.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Hatred

Hate is the opposite of the action of love, therefore, hatred must be an action.

“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness”.

1 John 2:9

“Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart; when he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with deception, his wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.”

Proverbs 26:24-26

We hate most people in the world. Why? Because we sit and do nothing for their souls. The Church has done a great job telling us that love has little or nothing to do with emotional feelings, yet they have done an abysmal job preaching the same ideology about hatred. 

Hate is the opposite of the action of love, therefore, hatred must be an action.

And it does not have to be a “hate crime”, or an active attempt at bringing evil on someone else, in fact, the most deadly hatred is passive. 

We walk by hundreds of people every week who have no idea about the gospel. If they continue to live their lives the way they are now, they will end up in hell, no doubt about it. We know this already, yet what do we do? Nothing. We have the knowledge and power that would pull them from the depths of hell yet we sit on it, we don’t share it, we keep it to ourselves. This action is hatred. It is hatred and sin disguising itself as something innocent. If we do not share the gospel, we hate other people.

Does this mean we should stand in the middle of Walmart to evangelize? I don’t think so. While that wouldn’t be wrong, it almost certainly would be ineffective and therefore a waste of time just like door-knocking in the 21st century.  That evangelism should be strategic and relationship based, rather than “business based” as it has been for so long. 

People still think these old evangelism strategies are valuable!

Just know, these are the same people who kept their money in a bank that gave them 0.25% interest instead of investing to get 5-8% interest. How are their retirement accounts looking these days?

Hatred is a silent killer. All it needs is for you to be content and comfortable doing nothing with your faith, and doing nothing for the people around you. This is the general law of hatred. It’s not some big Hitlerian show of evil. It’s subtle, and it will result in the death of souls if we do not do something about it. Boys think hatred is an emotion. Men recognize hate as an action.

Once hate is recognized as an action, preventative measures can be set up against it. 

Mantra

Hatred is an action, not an emotion. 

hatred. isolation

Application

Awareness is always the first principle of improvement. You must become aware of your hatred for others before you can end it. Be aware of how you think about other people who pass you by. Think about their souls. Think about what would happen if you were them and they were you. Your soul would be lost at the end of life if someone didn’t have the love to tell you the truth. 

After becoming aware, do something to stop it. Build relationships with people, and on those relationships share the gospel. This is how you defeat hatred. 

It will be very difficult to share the gospel without a previous relationship with someone.

People aren’t going to invest in stocks they hear about for the first time without doing research. Why then would they invest in your faith if they know nothing about you? This is one of the reasons door-knocking has become less effective. Because in the 21st century human beings have never been so connected yet so lonely. That loneliness has to be counteracted with real relationships with people. 

When you build relationships with people you are showing that you care about them as individuals, something that is not conveyed by banging on someone’s door and giving them a pamphlet. On the strong foundation of a friendship, share the gospel. You will find this yields a much higher rate of return than the classic methods still used in religion today.

Conduct Yourselves like Men.

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