Posts tagged Inspiration

What is a man?

As Father’s Day approaches this Sunday I find myself reflecting back on my life. I ask myself have I lived up to reasonable standards? Have I stood my ground when I believe I’ve been right? Have I been a good father, husband and friend? I feel lucky that I can answer yes to these questions.

But it wasn’t that way always.

As a little boy I suffered through emotional and physical abuse; as a teenager I was bullied badly by some real bad guys in the Bronx. As I entered my 20’s, I had my heart broken twice. When my time comes, before they bury me and say Kaddish, I want one of my friends to bring a boom box and put a CD from Franck Sinatra into the player. Now you might say, ‘Mark, what is an old Deadhead like you listening to Frank Sinatra?’ And I’d explain that his song “My Way” is my theme song.

Here are some of the lyrics that I really resonate with:

“And there were times,
I’m sure you knew,
When I bit off more
than I could chew.
But through it all,
when there was that,
I chewed up
and spit it out.

I face them all
And I stood tall.

And did it my way.”

There are many men in our society who are so caught up in how much money they have, how many women they can bed, and how many fights they can win. Is that what a man is? Not in my way of thinking.

I was there in the 60’s. I thought we were going to make a brave new world. We didn’t but I tip my hat to the feminists who picked up the banner of change and ran with it.

Where were all the men? We were supposed to be part of the Human Potential Movement.

Now it’s up to us, as men, to join our sisters in creating a better world. In the next several blogs I plan to talk about many issues that man are either hesitant to talk about, don’t have the words for, or believed it is not socially acceptable to discuss. Stay tuned www.markdworkin.com for videos, articles, and podcasts; and what’s new and coming soon: my new e-book on men recovering from sexual abuse. As always you can contact me through email: mark@markdworkin.com or by ‘asking a question’ on this tumblr page.