Gratitude

This post is after a little hiatus, some time off.  But now I am back in the full swing of things and back on the path to becoming a better man.  The next challenge deals with the importance of gratitude.  There were two parts to this challenge.  The first part is to cultivate our gratitude by creating a list of ten things we are thankful for.  They are to be specific things.

Here is my list.

1.   I am thankful how my wife sacrifices sleep to spend more time with me in the morning.
2.   I am thankful for being blessed to have a family to spend time with.
3.   I am thankful for a family that is growing, both my nuclear and extended.
4.   I am thankful for being able to play basketball and other physical activities.
5.   I am thankful for being able to take the metro to work and have some alone time to read or simply be.
6.   I am thankful for the baby boy we are going to have in July.
7.   I am thankful for a job I get to come to everyday and provide for my family
8.   I am thankful for a loving church family that God uses to bless us beyond belief.
9.   I am thankful for having the chance to constantly strive to become more like Jesus.
10. I am thankful for waking up everyday and having a life to live.

Part 2, Showing gratitude.

The second part was for us to give three thank yous to three different people.  The people that I thanked were the two workers who stands at my metro stop and makes sure people do not cross the tracks when a train is approaching.  The second person I thanked was the office worker at my school who makes our copies.  The third person I thanked was the 4 bus drivers that take me to and from the metro to my school.

I like to show gratitude and to let people know that they are appreciated.  I enjoyed this challenge and I fell that it is a good thing to practice daily.

Building Testosterone

So the fourth challenge of the "30 Days to be a Better Man" dealt with testosterone.  It said that most of women's and men's biological differences break down to the amount of testosterone in the body. 

Studies have shown that levels of testosterone in modern men are lower than the levels in men fifteen years ago.

There were 9 different tasks that were given and they challenged us to try out 3 of them.  After reading them, I realized that a majority revolved around exercise, sleep, and diet.

Exercise

Recently I have been trying to work out more, to be more deliberate and conscious about my body.  I remember in high school when I was on the swim team I had morning practice 5 days a week.  Even though I had to be in the pool by 6 a.m., each day as I walked to first period I felt refreshed and ready for the day.  At 24 Hour Fitness they have spin classes from 5:30 - 6:30 a.m.  I attended one Friday morning and found I had that same feeling I remember from walking to first period after swim practice.

Next week I am going to attend the spin classes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Sleep

Over Spring break I was able to sleep in each day and get 8 - 10 hours of sleep and it re-energized me and helped me get ready to going back to work where I wake up at 5:30.

Diet

Another one was to eat a good serving of fat and a meal with high protein.  Through avocados and nuts, there are good servings of fat that help with my mood and how I am able to go about my day.  Vegetarian diets have been shown to lower testosterone levels. Eating meat, meat, and more meat helps men get back to their carnal routes.  Last night we had burgers with avocado and later this week we will be having steak.  This is a practice I can get used to.

I feel that most of what raises levels of testosterone are practices that should be done anyway.  I am going to take these different tasks into consideration and try to make them a regular part of my life.

Mentorship

The next challenge is to find a mentor. This mentor is supposed to be someone you look up to in some way. When I read about this challenge I thought of Socrates and Plato, and the movie Good Will Hunting. The relationship between Matt Damon and Robin Williams, albeit a counselor and patient relationship, is kind of what a healthy mentoring relationship looks like. There is built up trust, laughs, serious times, and break throughs for both people.

Mentoring made me also think about how one gets trained at work is just like being trained at life. When I worked at in-n-out I saw how important training was. Each store has their own trainer and I feel this helped the quality of work immensely. The trainer told me about how the best trainers train their trainees to be better than themselves one day. I feel that trainers, teachers, mentors should instruct while believing that the trainees, the students, the mentees will surpass their level by using passed on wisdom as a foundation and building from there.

I asked someone from my church to mentor me and I'm excited to see where this will lead. I feel that having the structure of a mentorship will make our already close relationship even closer and deeper.

The mentoring challenge has been completed, yet it has only just begun.

Shine Your Shoes

There was a time when men shined their own shoes.  The black polish was a household item that was regularly purchased.  There was a sense of pride, professionalism, and manliness connected with having shoes that shined.  I like to think that even blue collar workers, who may not have been able to afford authentic shoe polish, would use a lump of coal they mined as makeshift polish.  I imagine that after a long shift, deep within the Earth's crust, deeper than most have even been, while waiting for the old steal cage elevator, the men sit down in the mine, break up some of the cherished coal to clean and shine their shoes.  When the men come up the elevator, shielding their eyes as they are blinded by that first glimpse of sunlight, their clothes, which are made of rags, and their faces are dirty from a lifestyle of manual labor.  But they have clean shoes that have been shined.

This scene has probably never happened. 

Men’s shoes today are mostly made of “pleather” and do not even need shining.  For those who purchase genuine leather shoes, I’m guessing they get their shoes shined by the little booths in malls and hotels.  Just like changing the oil in our cars, we get someone else to do it because it is easier and more convenient.

The next challenge in the "30 Days To a Better Man" called for aspiring men to shine their shoes.  The shiniest day for my dress shoes has been the first day I bought them.  When I read about this challenge I immediately thought of the scene from The Shawshank Redemption where Red is speaking about how Andy is wearing the warden’s shoes and nobody notices:  “…Andy did like he was told, buffed those shoes to a high mirror shine. The guards simply didn't notice. Neither did I... I mean, seriously, how often do you really look at a man’s shoes?...”  When I read the description of the challenge, in the first line, they mention this exact quote.  This got me even more excited.

I bought some Kiwi shoe polish, grabbed my dress shoes and a rag and thought of the history behind this practice and of my future of having shiny shoes, I went to work.

Here are some pictures.

Before

After

Now the shiniest day for my dress shoes is today.  

Core Values

These posts, or steps, are based from the "30 Days To a Better Man" challenge set forth by artofmanliness.com.  The first challenge is for men to define their core values.  The challenge called for five, but I had to include six. I hope that my daily choices and actions reflect these core values that I have set forth.

Challenge #1:

Here are my six core values:

1. God - The pursuit of, love of, and longing for

                                       - Wife
2. Relationships       - Family
                                       - Friends

3. Grace - Towards others always

4. Service - Serve others before myself.

5. Discipline - Self-discipline in my responsibilities, choices, and actions

6. Challenge myself - In mind, body, and spirit

Those are my core values.  This list will change through time, but right now, I feel that this is a pretty good set to model my life by.