I was spinning laps around the track this past Wednesday talking to one of the “homeboys” in here… well… let me clarify. I was spinning laps around the track getting ‘talked at’ by one of the “homeboys” this past Wednesday. He was going on and on about how he was getting out soon and the only thing on his mind is getting back to “where he was” before he came in. As he describes life before this journey… “Bro. I’m getting my Maserati back. I’m getting my house back. I’m getting it all back. Then I’m going to show everybody that can’t nothin’ hold me down… I made it through this bullsh*t sentence now I’m back and going to show them who is king. Going to show them how a man handles himself”.
I have never wanted the 10 minute move announcement to happen more than in this moment…
I couldn’t help but think… “Is this really what you want? Are these ‘things’ really how you want to supposedly show the people closest to you that you are ‘the man’?” As we got closer to that saving bell that would allow me to politely exit the conversation… I remembered a quote that I read recently and had to hit him with the general jist as I couldn’t allow him to think that I was on the same page with his overall outlook on life and what makes us ‘men’.
Theodore Roosevelt once said…
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood: who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.” I went on to tell him that this… this is what I want. I lived so many years attempting to “perfect” my life and then prove that said life was in fact perfect when in reality… I was just pretending the entire time. This journey has taught me (and continues to remind me) that I never again want to spend one second of my life perfecting and proving and pretending. I want to be in the arena and the only thing that is for damn certain if you’re going to live your life “in the arena” is that you’re going to get your ass kicked. But that’s what it is all about… living… failing… pivoting… failing… learning and getting back up and trying again. And as cliche as it may sound… eventually you realize that the “success” you have been chasing and attempting to force others to believe that you have achieved is actually happening along the way… not at the end of the journey.
Being a ‘man’ is really about being brave enough to be vulnerable. To admit your shortcomings and your mistakes and do everything in your power to learn from them so history does not repeat itself. It is knowing that this vulnerability is what bravery actually looks like. It is standing in front of that mirror when you are the only one in the room and courageously quieting the lies that you tell yourself… allow yourself to see who you are. And who you actually are encapsulates all the good and all the bad… the totality is what makes us human. Cool cars and big houses don’t make us the human beings that we want our children to strive toward. Standing tall through our honesty… vulnerability… emotional courage… empathy… curiosity… these are the traits that make us ‘men’. These are the aspects of man-hood that make us whole and we can only genuinely develop these building blocks through taking the mask off… failing… owning these failures and getting back up to tackle whatever life throws at us next.
I hope my “homeboy” internalizes some of this as he ventures back into the real world because the last thing we need out there is another “man” showing our young boys that happiness and power and success and fulfillment is bought. I will never know if he actually has or not but that is not my journey. What is important is through my journey… I have internalized the above and on the other side of my time behind these walls… my boys will undoubtedly know and witness what it looks like to see a man who has been in the arena. To see a man who has made every wrong decision you could possibly make but has learned and will forever continue to learn from his missteps in order to be a man that they can be proud to call their Dad for the rest of my life.
And in order for them to be proud of their Dad… their Dad has to be proud of the man that he is… and I’m working on that.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Vulnerable. Stay in the Arena.