Not long after I stumbled upon the manosphere and the Red Pill, a (rather dour tbh) regular of the blog I frequented at the time said something that really stuck with me.

“We are all just wandering through the smoking wreckage.”

Yep.We may not have detonated the bomb, or had any say in the plan way back when, but here we are today, now almost 50 years later, wandering through the smoking wreckage.

The idyllic past is gone, if it ever existed,  anyway. The present is a s#itshow, pardon my language. And so? Now that we find ourselves here, now, like it or not, what next?

Well there are really three choices. Denial. Nihilism. Or facing and making some personal best of the tactical reality on the ground. Ok, choice four is some version of self-destruction, but I would not suggest it. So let’s just cross that option off the list.

Maybe you had a perfect childhood. Maybe not. Maybe you have the lucky golden path. If you are reading this my guess is you (like 98% of us) did not. And even if you had both, it still might not be working out. Welcome to here, now. And so?

Chances are you can’t change it much, really, on a scale larger than yourself. Maybe you can but probably not really. Or not because that was your main goal.

The opportunities are in the margins, as they say. So rather than trying to fix anyone else much less the world, maybe just start by making something out of the smoking wreckage for you and yours.

What that will look like is highly individual, but it probably involves some version of what worked for centuries before the “modern way” and your own personal situation.

For some it may be going your own way. For others it may mean some form of long term commitment on whatever terms (legally committed, or committed without legal terms, or something inbetween.) For others, it may be something that others don’t understand but that works for those involved. Obviously there are more possible scenarios than I can ever name here. You know your own situation, limits, negotiables and and non-negotiables better than me.

In short: accept the past path is gone, feel free to reject the current path that’s got a 50/50 chance at best, and sift through and build the best version of tomorrow for your situation as you can, from among the smoking wreckage and options realistically available, based upon your personal pros and cons.

Speaking of, if your personal situation is more con than pro, start there. Nobody can fix you or save you. Take responsibility for your own stuff. Figure out what hasn’t worked and why and what parts of that are yours and yours to change.  Understand. Make those changes. Be what you yourself would expect from others. Don’t expect it all but bring little to none to the table.

Its true that despite all that, things may not work out as you hoped or planned. But doing more than 80% of others are surely can’t hurt your odds of crafting a life versus blindly and naively hoping for the best.

There’s not much among the smoking wreckage to work with, true. But at least if you know what it is you are trying to achieve and then are actually, actively, and ongoingly taking steps to get there it has got to lead to better odds than dumb luck or random chance. Or in the very least will help you avoid what you absolutely don’t want.

It’s far from ideal, it’s true. But it is what it is. Accepting that and then making the best of it as you can based on the options available and within your control is really the only viable path I can see. Rebuilding from rubble isn’t ideal or easy. But if it’s rubble you’ve got, and sticking with that isn’t what you want, what other options do you have? Start sifting and build what you can, or forget building and accept your choice without blame or bitterness.

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

The other day I happened to have a rare half hour of free time and be near a national historic site all dolled up for Christmas, so naturally I popped in to get some holiday cheer.

The tour guide, a retiree aged gal, was happy to tell me all about the place.

Maybe 10 minutes in, a dad and two teens came in. They naturally folded into my not scheduled tour.

The house we were touring has been home to many four and even five star generals in its day.

At one point, the tour guide started to explain how a certain room had once been limited to men over the age of 18.

Then the uncomfortable moment occurred — the two teens were most likely female genetically but expressing as males. (Not that I asked, just a best guess and 40+ years of experience.)

The nervous tour guide focused on the age vs gender limit, but I could tell she was struggling with the proper pronouns.

i thought, why on earth would anyone (these teen possibly genetically girls, for example) decide to identify as white males? Did they not know this is now the one and only demographic it is totally OK to discriminate against?

And  if white males are so terrible, why would anyone choose to identify as such? If they did not have to?

And maybe they just unfortunately were born genetically female but identified as white males despite the current disadvantage.

Anyway we all survived the tour. But I did wonder these things.  Not that it matters really.

What do you think?Please share in the comments!

(P.s. I recently read of a study that showed in the 1960s in mice that the birth control pill created marked statistically significant gender confusion in the third generation (grandchildren of females who took the pill) but that the data was suppressed. And we are here now in human generations. Would maybe explain the otherwise inexplainable? I dunno.. discuss… )

Lol, perhaps this poem from a book published in 1981 foretold the red pill:

Ladies First

Pamela Purse yelled, ‘Ladies first,’
Pushing in front of the ice cream line.
Pamela Purse yelled, ‘Ladies first,’
Grabbing the ketchup at dinnertime.
Climbing on the morning bus
She’d shove right by all of us
And there’d be a tiff or a fight or a fuss
When Pamela Purse yelled, ‘Ladies first.’

Pamela Purse screamed, ‘Ladies first,’
When we went off on our jungle trip.
Pamela Purse said her thirst was worse
And guzzled our water, every sip.
And when we got grabbed by that wild savage band,
Who tied us together and made us all stand
In a long line in front of the King of the land-
A cannibal known as Fry-‘Em-Up Dan,
Who sat on his throne in a bib so grand
With a lick of his lips and a fork in his hand,
As he tried to decide who’d be first in the pan-
From back of the line, in that shrill voice of hers,
Pamela Purse yelled, ‘Ladies first.’

by Shel Silverstein

What do you think? Please share in the comments!

It is far more common in our culture for people to blame others, circumstances, the past, society, or other factors for their trials and tribulations than to look within.

Introspection does not mean self-blame, but rather self-examination. Many times it is our own beliefs, thought patterns, assumptions, habits, and frame of reference that offer the biggest opportunity to improve one’s life. Changing them can change everything.

Whether the issues are at work, home, or play, look within and ask if there are thing you can do, change, or be to affect positive change in your life in these areas?

Chances are in many cases you’ll find that understanding what steps you can take to improve things and doing so will get you much further than focusing on outside forces.

What do you think? Please share in the comments.

Something I have noticed is that life today seems to be jam packed with things to do, places to go, and people to see.

Every minute is booked or overbooked in most people’s schedules. Even with gadgets like online calendars it’s tough to keep track of everything.

My advice would be to make a little time for wonder. For walking around a lake, laying in the grass under a tree with a book, or simply watching the clouds roll by.

Such moments are like nourishment for a starving soul, and far too rare today. Quiet time for contemplation isn’t wasted time, it’s essential.

If you have children, encourage them to do so as well. Plan in downtime, so they learn not every minute needs to be filled with “something to do.”

If like me you were taught that every moment needed to be productive, try breaking free from that idea, and just “waste” some time now and then doing seemingly nothing.

Chances are (after you let go of the guilt) you’ll find life feels less frantic, your mind will stop spinning non-stop, and the rest of your hours will be more fruitful for taking some moments to simply relax, enjoy, and ponder.

Consider it busy life burnout prevention, if it helps.

What do you think? Do you find it hard to put life on pause? Please share in the comments.

Happy Valentines Day! Wishing each and every one of you a wonderful day filled with things you love whether that’s pancakes, motorcycles, or sleeping in.

Once I heard a statistic that more couples fight on Valentine’s Day than any other. And I would believe it. There are lots of unrealistic expectations placed on this day, both by people as well as marketers, retailers, restaurants, chocolatiers, florists, and more.

Rather than pin all the love and romance on a single day, why not make everyday Valentines Day by showing love and kindness to those in your life as well as to yourself every day of the year?

Heart shaped pancakes might make a good start! That’s my plan anyway!

What do you think about Valentines Day? Please share in the comments!

Are you owning your life?

Its a deceptively easy question, yet one that can also strike to the core.  Many today would prefer to blame others or circumstance than take ownership for life being less than they want.

Sure, some are born into more wealth, or a more stable family, the right connections, or have more smarts. But even these people eventually have to pick up the ball of life and run with it, or not.

So if the life you want isn’t the life you have, own it. Look within and identify what YOU can do to bring the two as close together as possible.

Maybe some fixes are as easy as spending a few hours, others may be lifelong projects. But they will never materialize without you owning them and taking the steps necessary to manifest them.

Wishing isn’t doing.

Maybe you will have to change habits, step out of your comfort zone, do and be things you never have before. It might seem easier to just stay the course. But it’s not.

Maybe you need to give yourself permission to actually have a good life? Maybe somehow you are holding back or don’t believe it’s possible? Maybe somehow you picked up the message that the good life is for others?

The big secret is in most cases it’s entirely possible, but only if you own it. Only if you do it rather than simply dream it.

Sure there will be setbacks and struggles. Don’t read them as signs you are failing, read them as growing pains, teachable moments, and lessons learned.

In the end it’s your life. Your work of art. Your short span on this spinning ball. No matter what has happened up until now, the future is not yet written.

Own it! Make it yours. Make it a tale of triumph!

Comments in yesterday’s post brought up the topic of kids needing parents just as much in the tween and teen years as the ones before. A story about the 13-year-old daughter of a co-worker is an excellent example.

The family lives in a neighborhood in town. Dad works, mom is SAH. Four kids, two grown, one boy younger than the 13-year-old by 5 years. The daughter had friends in the neighborhood she regularly hung out with so mom didn’t think much of it when she asked to go to her friend’s house a few streets over.

Luckily after a few days the friend’s conscience got the better of her, and she told her mom the girl had actually gone to meet a supposed 17-year-old boy she had met on snap chat. The girl met him at a dead end road, got in his car, and the two made out. Mind you this was a complete stranger she had only met online a few hours before!

Luckily things did not go as badly as they could have, the girl easily could have never been seen again. When confronted she wasn’t sorry she had done it, only that she had been caught.

Mom hid the incident from dad, as she usually does. Instead of allowing dad to serve as protector, mom “shielded” her daughter from that and handled the punishment herself, some combo of losing the cell phone and being grounded.

Not long later the daughter (14 now) started attending the conservative Amish-like church in our area because she was interested in a boy who attended there.

They would meet in town unsupervised “to go to McDonalds” or some such and her mom thought it was all on the up and up until the boy’s mother called one evening to reveal she had read her sons text messages and discovered the two were sexually active.

The boy’s mother offered to “make it right” by considering the two betrothed and having them marry in a few years. The boy’s mother suggested a meeting of the fathers to discuss it.

Again the mom declined, hid the information from the dad, and the boy’s parents forced him to break off the relationship.

The girl no longer attends the church and is embarrassed because “everybody knows” and avoids her now.

Later, the girl’s mom learned this boy had not been her daughter’s first sexual partner. Somehow she had concealed the other relationship from her mom entirely.

The mom responded by figuring it’s just going to happen, so she took her daughter to get an IUD and has pretty much given up on trying to keep track of her whereabouts. The girl is increasingly defiant and continues down this path.

While some of the details are unique, it’s probably not such an atypical example of what pre-teens/teens might be doing with unsupervised idle time.

Commenters were right to say that just because kids of this age can be more independent, that doesn’t mean that parents can check out or be hands off.

Perhaps what this girl needed was more parental involvement, more structured activities, parents who were working together to keep her from making bad choices, and a more transparent relationship with her dad?

What do you think? Please share in the comments.

Something women should do is choose who they surround themselves with wisely.

Why? We tend to adopt the views and habits of those around us.

So for example if you value marriage and family, best to surround yourself with likeminded pals who share your goals and ideals. Likewise, surrounding yourself with women pondering frivorce, or who live a “sex in the city” lifestyle, or who don’t value marriage and family would be unwise.

Attitude and emotions are infectious. I know many times I have been feeling perfectly fine, only to have time spent with negative women running down their man, marriages, jobs, etc. leave me feeling drained and dissatisfied myself. I call such negative get togethers “hen sessions” and now avoid them at all costs. These groups can be found anywhere — even in church bible study groups!

I found the same effect can happen with television. Talk shows are one example. After half an hour of listening to people who have made bad choices and have big problems, it’s hard not to feel upset, angry, or down yourself.

Social media is another area where this can easily occur. I finally decided to forgo it altogether when it turned the corner from a fun way to share photos with family and friends and into a quagmire of people arguing and disagreeing about everything under the sun.

Pay attention to the attitudes and life choices of those in your inner circle. Are they people who inspire and uplift you or people who leave you feeling defeated and down. Not that everyone can’t have an occasional off day, but overall is their glass half full or half empty?

Its OK to step back or take a break from the toxic people in your world for your own sake. It doesn’t have to be a big blow up, you can simply fade away.  If you must interact with them at work, family gatherings, or other social situations take steps to insulate yourself from their rays of gloom as much as possible.

Time is too precious to spend with people or activities that bring negativity and drama into your world. Trust me, you will be a lot happier without all the angst.

Seek out those who are happy and healthy themselves. You’ll build each other up and enjoy doing it. Better to just have a single friend of this sort than oodles of the other.

What do you think? Please share in the comments.

I’ll admit, the red pill gets to me at times. It can seem overwhelmingly negative, defeatist, hopeless even. In a world so upside down, with such unrest and instability, what’s the point?

When I feel like that, I refocus on the gift the red pill can give — the chance to craft a life. A life based in reality, yes, but at least a reality that has some chance of success versus pipe dreams and fairy tales.

And even more, the chance to craft a life not only for myself but for my children. A hope to help them avoid the snares and pretty little lies that lead so many astray. To help them get it right.

Sure, I sometimes miss the days when I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Or I think I do until I remember how poorly all that really worked.

The red pill can be bitter, reveal harsh truths we’d rather not see, detonate all once held to be true. Yet it’s only from there one gets the chance to rebuild — wiser, better, stronger. The chance to truly craft a life well lived.

What do you think? How has the red pill changed your life for better or worse? Please share in the comments.