Fireside Chat: Man's Silence Through Hardship

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.

-      James Allan

I have been dealing with more pain than usual. It has gotten to the point where I only leave the house when it is necessary. The pain clinic believes that, should they help me with opioids, I will become an addict. Meanwhile, they are totally fine with me learning to deal with nerve death. It feels like parts of your body are asleep all the time. I would instead get my neck broken again then feel this…again.

            Last June was the fifth anniversary when I temporarily left this world. Since then, I have had to learn how to read again. I have had to learn to write again. I’ve had to learn how to control my emotions throughout the process because a man suffers in silence. He does not vocalize his trauma because he needs to ensure that he does not further the worry of his family. He knows that they stress how he feels, what he is going through, and whether or not this will be the day he decides to end his suffering himself. A man does what he must, despite circumstances, despite his issues. What he must do is simple: sacrifice everything for his family. The first chapter of Joshua tells us that “if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.” God does not allow his work to be made manifest by cowards. God commands that a man must provide for his family throughout the thorns and thistles brought forth for us. They strengthen our souls and bring us closer to the Lord. The first epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians tells us to “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” Without some form of faith, there is no reason to live.        

            Life is not fair; it just is. If there is any form of truth, we learn who we are from two places: conflict and pain. If we surround ourselves with aggression, abuse, or violence, we accept or reject these lessons. If ideologues of ideology gain control of the culture of manliness, transform it into a therapeutic adventure and strip away what makes mankind a life of grit, they take away how men are supposed to grow and develop. Instead of fighting a war against your best, the modern era compares every man’s accomplishments to those of another. No matter how strong you are, how much money you have in the bank, or how high you’ve risen in the ranks, the therapeutics will constantly remind you how much others have accomplished. The truth is that, no matter how the world attempts to make him think in their ideals, mankind needs to set the bar themselves. The ancestor of every action is a thought. The thought which needs to be abandoned is the reliance on others to set the bar for you; a man who sets the bar for himself is liberated. When he fights to exceed his very best, he is above all other lines set.