People have asked me about my thoughts on Steve Pavlina’s How To Be A Man – in particular, his views on how a man should relate to his family in relation to his personal goals. While I am pretty sure he didn’t mean to make the ideal man sound like a Dead-Beat Dad, that is how it came across to me and, apparently, many others. Steve’s text is in italics below, with my thoughts afterwards.

1. Make real decisions.

A man understands and respects the power of choice. He lives a life of his own creation. He knows that life stagnates when he fails to decide and flourishes when he chooses a clear path.

When a man makes a decision, he opens the door he wants and closes the doors he doesn’t want. He locks onto his target like a guided missile. There’s no guarantee he’ll reach his target, and he knows this, but he doesn’t need such guarantees. He simply enjoys the sense of inevitability that comes from pushing the launch button.

A man doesn’t require the approval of others. He’s willing to follow his heart wherever it leads him. When a man is following his heart-centered path, it’s of little consequence if the entire world is against him.

I agree that making decisions in an extremely important step for individuals to live full lives. However, the way it was written on Steve’s blog could easily describe a typical absent father, who just runs out on his family because the door he wants to go through doesn’t involve them.

Life should flow, much like water does. Feel the most natural direction and go with it, unafraid of conditions ahead. Too much worry over choices will leave your life nothing more than a stagnant pond. But, just as a healthy stream carries life, a man will carry his family, nourishing them and introducing them to new adventures along the way.

2. Put your relationships second.

A man who claims his #1 commitment in life is his relationship partner (or his family) is either too dishonest or too weak to be trusted. His loyalties are misplaced. A man who values individuals above his own integrity is a wretch, not a free thinker.

A man knows he must commit to something greater than satisfying the needs of a few people. He’s not willing to be domesticated, but he is willing to accept the responsibility that comes with greater challenges. He knows that when he shirks that duty, he becomes something less than a man. When others observe that the man is unyieldingly committed to his values and ideals, he gains their trust and respect, even when he cannot gain their direct support. The surest way for a man to lose the respect of others (as well as his self-respect) is to violate his own values.

Life will test the man to see if he’s willing to put loyalty to others ahead of loyalty to his principles. The man will be offered many temptations to expose his true loyalties. A man’s greatest reward is to live with integrity, and his greatest punishment is what he inflicts upon himself for placing anything above his integrity. Whenever the man sacrifices his integrity, he loses his freedom… and himself as well. He becomes an object of pity.

Put your relationships second?? If a man is in a relationship that isn’t going to allow him to stick to what he believes, he needs to find a different partner. A strong, loving partnership will only add to his integrity, and a loving spouse who knows that she comes first in his life will only add her strength to his, rather than create weaknesses with her insecurity over their relationship.

This doesn’t just go for men, either. A healthy partnership will work together for a mutual goal in a complimentary fashion. I am truly surprised by his answer here, as it seems to me that Steve and his wife have a very supportive partnership, and that without her support, he wouldn’t have achieved what he has. The man he is describing is a very lonely one, who, at the end of his life, has a large fortune but no one to organize his funeral.

In response to Steve Pavlina’s How To Be A Man:

1. Be Strong – It seems too obvious to even mention, but here it is. Man or woman, strength is a key ingredient to a good life. Stand up for yourself, and you won’t regret it. If you let people intimidate you, or make your choices for you, you will travel on a downward path towards bitterness and low-self esteem. You are the best person to know your own mind and stand up for what you feel is best.

2. Choose the Right Friends – Time spent with friends should be an energizing time of self-discovery and mutual support. If you aren’t getting that from your friends, ask yourself why. Do you have a cycle of negativity with them? If so, perhaps it is time to stir things up a bit.

3. Choose the Right Partner – Regardless of whether or not you plan to have children, ask yourself, ‘Would this person be good enough to raise my children?’ If the answer is no, then why is he/she good enough for you? Which brings us to number 4:

4. Love Yourself – Treat yourself with the same love and respect you would wish for your children. Once you reach adulthood, you are your own child, after all. You are the one responsible for your own health and happiness, so don’t leave yourself alone and abandoned by the only one able to see you through every moment of your life. You are the most special person in your life. Without this love, you cannot properly care for anyone else.

5. Channel Your Inner Mother – You are female, and therefore, something inside you is made to be a mother in some sense. Embrace this part of you, and speak out against people who are doing bad things, congratulate those who are doing good things and support those who could use a little more strength in what they are doing. Be a mother to your family, neighborhood and the world.

6. Live Gracefully – Much of coming across as a real woman is about grace. Don’t overdo make-up or worry about your hair and clothes every moment of the day. You are who you are, accept it and live gracefully. Being a woman is about knowing who you are, and being comfortable with it. In the end, do you want to be a Tammy Faye or a Jane Seymour?

7. Keep Learning – For all the woman driver and dumb blonde jokes, one of the greatest things about being a woman is the ability to multitask and find clothing items that are folded up in the drawer, right where they should be, despite the assertions to the contrary made by her life partner. These abilities aren’t always recognized as signs of intelligence, but they are. A happy woman will continue to exercise her mind, keeping her wit quick, and adding to her ability to entertain and offer the correct words of encouragement to others, as well as protect herself. The more active she keeps her mind, the more able she will be to stay strong and aware, and make the right decisions.

8. Take Care of Yourself – In the world as it is today, many of us are guilty of skimping on the time we take to rest, feed ourselves proper food and relax. A woman should remember that her health is all-important. Without good health, she will not be able to accomplish her goals.

9 Laugh and Play – Don’t worry about what people think – have fun! Chase your children through the play-scape tunnel, get grass stains on your clothing. Life isn’t all about being proper and serious. Enjoy the time you have, and those around you will enjoy themselves, too, providing an energizing circle of joy.

10. Don’t be afraid to turn into your mother – Sure, she’s not perfect, and you don’t want to be just like her. But you won’t be; you have had your own experiences, and should feel secure enough in this knowledge to embrace the family resemblance that you cannot escape. Be who you want to be, but honor those who helped you become that person.

Before my husband and I ‘discovered’ each other, we were good friends. One day, while he was hurting over the unavoidable end of a long-term relationship, he asked me if I believed in Love At First Sight. I told him that I did believe in it, much the way I believe in déjà vu.

When you experience a feeling that something has happened before, or you are so sure about a certain thing, like love at first sight, that you can’t help but throw yourself headfirst into a situation, it is a sign from the universe that you are on the right path.

We each have a road map, if you will, which we are meant to follow. When we are on the ‘right’ path, we experience moments like these. The more we follow our destined road, the more ‘signs’ we will see. Many will be in the form of familiar signs, like in déjà vu, and many will be in easy-to-overlook signs. For example, my obsession right now is our website, Look to the Stars. When all is going well, I see stars everywhere I look, and it reaffirms that I am on the right path.

Of course, just because you experience Love At First Sight, or any other such intense feeling, doesn’t mean that that situation is a permanent one. It just means that you are in exactly the right place at the right time.

Do you have any stories to share?