The Art of Manliness » Featured

30 Days to a Better Man Day 20: Perform Service

Brett & Kate McKay — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:15:43 +0000

When we think about moments that epitomize manliness, we often think of the captain going down with the ship, the men who allow the women and children to go first, the soldier who throws himself on a grenade to shield his brothers from the blow, the old man who attempts to save a drowning child and perishes himself in the waves. The common denominator in such scenarios is this: sacrifice. Sacrifice is arguably the manliest of virtues. It is the ability to give up our desires, sometimes even our lives, to aid and benefit someone else.

While most of us will never be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice, there is one sacrifice every man is both capable of making and should be making: the sacrifice of his time and resources in service to others.

Even men who don’t consider themselves materialistic, can be absolutely greedy with their time. But while holding tightly to our time and resources seems in the moment to protect our happiness, in the long run, this selfishness cankers our souls. The more tightly we hold to things, the less we enjoy them. Selfishness makes us needlessly bitter and contemptible, never feeling like we have enough, always worried that someone is going to take away our stuff. In not sharing of our time, talents, and resources, we end up feeling empty, not full. Service should thus be a part of every man’s life, lest he along with Ebenezer Scrooge should despair, “Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! Such was I!”

Our Obligation to Serve

Everybody knows that life isn’t fair. Some of us have a lot and some of us have a little. We can throw up our hands at this disparity, or we can do as much as we can to add balance to the universe. If you are lucky enough to have more talents and resources than someone else, then show your gratitude for these things by putting some back in the pot. Where much is given much is required.

Part of the warrior’s code that every soldier lives by is the maxim, “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” Thus, in the heat of battle, when someone cries out, “Man down!” the troops mobilize to get their fallen comrade to safety. A medic or another soldier will brave the hail of bullets to save their comrade.

There are a lot of men down these days. They’re wounded on the battlefield of life, not with bullets but with poverty, illiteracy, and hopelessness. As part of the brotherhood of man, we have an obligation not to leave our comrades behind. As the saying goes, “The public service we render is the rent we pay for our place on earth.”

The Benefits of Service

Of course the greatest benefit of service, is the help that those in need receive from you. Service can transform lives, communities, and nations. But giving service is one of the greatest paradoxes of life. For although it seems as if we sacrifice in giving away our time and resources, we actually get a whole host of benefits in return. In giving, we get. It’s a mystery, but it’s absolutely true. Serving can transform your life in the following ways:

Makes you happy. One of the first words a child learns is “mine.” And we often navigate life with this simple philosophy: “What in it for me?” But as mentioned above, such selfishness does not bring us contentment or peace. It’s giving, not getting, they brings us real happiness. I’ll admit that when I’m asked to do a service project or when I’m waking up at 7 in the morning on a Saturday to go help somebody, I don’t always feel very happy. Often, I grumble about it. But every single time I’ve manned up and gone and done the service, I’ve felt happy and satisfied afterward. Every single time. Service just makes you feel good about yourself and about life.

Puts your problems in perspective. We often think that our problems our huge. And they feel huge because we have nothing to compare them to except our own life experiences. But when we serve those less fortunate then us, we come to see how good we have it. Our problems start to seem relatively small. And our gratitude for all the good things we have in life increases exponentially.

Breaks down prejudice. It’s easy to paint people we’ve never had any contact with broad strokes, to think we have them all figured out. Immigrants, poor people, criminals and so on-we think we know their story. We often formulate our opinions on such people without ever having talked to a single one of them. But when we work one on one with people different than us, we come to really love them and know them, and our compassion and empathy grows. We don’t see them as stereotypes, but as flesh and blood people, people whose problems are often far more complicated than we could have previously imagined.

Helps you find yourself. A lot of people talk, and agonize over, “finding themselves.” They want to find their authentic selves, who they really are. To this end, many traipse through Europe or go to grad school. There’s nothing wrong with such pursuits, but there’s no better way to get to the core of who you are than serving others. It will peel back the layers of your artifice and reveal what you’re really made of and what you really value. I can’t explain in words why it has this effect, but it does. I think it’s like the saying, “The watched pot never boils.” The more time you spend thinking about who you are, the more elusive the answer gets. As soon as you turn your focus to others, your true self is revealed.

How to Find Service Opportunities

One of the reasons many of us don’t serve more is not because we don’t have the desire, but simply because we don’t know how to get involved. We don’t know where to jump in. Here are some suggestions on finding a place to volunteer:

Volunteer with a Preexisting Organization

There are lots of established organizations out there that are always looking for volunteers. All you have to do is sign up. You might want to check out these:

Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America

The Red Cross

Habitat for Humanity

Boys Scouts of America

Meals on Wheels

Check a Website

There are several websites out there that simplify the process of finding a service opportunity. You simply enter your location to view a list of positions that organizations need filled by a volunteer.

Volunteer Match

Serve Net

Serve.gov. Our task today also coincides with President Obama’s “United We Serve” project, a nationwide effort to get all Americans to do some service this summer to help our country’s renewal and recovery.

Call an Organization

If you already know an area where you’d like to serve, than call up an organization and asks about volunteer opportunities. For example, if you’d like to work in education, call up a school. If you want to help the sick, call a hospital. Other possibilities include prisons, churches, retirement homes and charitable organizations. Or you might try to combine an old passion with your desire to serve by signing up to be a volunteer firefighter.

Join a Fraternal Organization

While we often think of fraternal organizations like the Masons and Shriners in conjunction with their ceremonies and rituals or as those guys who ride around on three-wheelers in parades, one of the main functions of lodges today it to perform community service. Joining an organization like the Masons will provide you with great service opportunities so you don’t have to go hunting them down.

Start Your Own Project

All that’s needed to start a service project is to identify a need in your community and then fill it. For example, Buzz started a project in his town of Montpelier, Vermont to bring firewood to the needy. Energy costs are sky high these days, and many people in places like Vermont can’t afford to heat their home electrically in the winter. They therefore use a wood burning stove to keep warm, but groups like the elderly and the sick aren’t able to go gather the wood they need. Buzz chops down trees (legally), splits the wood, and then delivers it to those who need it. Any man can do something similar. And it doesn’t have to be on a big scale either. If there’s a little old lady down the street, why not ask if you can mow her lawn or run some errands for her?

Today’s task: Commit to do some service. You obviously don’t have to do the service in the next 24 hours. Your task is simply to find a project or opportunity you’d like to volunteer for and sign up if you can. Or come up with a project that you’re going to create yourelf. Let us know what you decide to do in the Community.

Win a Free Amazon Kindle: The Toilet Paper National Bathroom Month Reading Giveaway

Brett & Kate McKay — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:32:56 +0000

There’s nothing quite like the uninterrupted solitude of reading in the bathroom. I’m sure if you go into most men’s bathrooms in their homes, you’ll find a stack of Popular Mechanics or maybe a book or two next to the john. Believe it or not, reading in the bathroom is a manly tradition that dates back to ancient Rome. Some Roman baths contained libraries so you could leisurely peruse a scroll while you took care of business. Saint Gregory Palamas, a monk who lived in the 12th Century, recommended the toilet of medieval fortresses as the best place to get some reading done.

Since then, the manly tradition of bathroom reading has been passed down through the generations. JFK supposedly put the finishing touches on his inauguration speech in the bathroom and W.C. Fields considered the bathroom his personal library. Today, millions of men across the world take part in this ritual.

To recognize this manly tradition, June has been declared National Bathroom Reading Month. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but I’m down with dedicating an entire month to bathroom reading.

While there’s nothing like rolling up a magazine while you’re taking care of business, how would you like to upgrade your bathroom reading with an Amazon Kindle? Interested? Read on.

The Prize

An Amazon Kindle. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s Amazon’s wireless eBook reader. It’s slim, lightweight, and you can download newspapers, magazines, and and up to 1,500 books. It’s the perfect bathroom reading accessory. I’m sure your wife or significant other will appreciate how uncluttered the toilet area will become as you move all your favorite reads to the Kindle. With the Kindle, you can even read the Art of Manliness from the pot. You can’t get much manlier than that.

The Kindle retails at $359. That’s a quite a chunk of change. How nice would it be to get one for free?

The Contest

The fine gentlemen at The Toilet Paper are offering a FREE Amazon Kindle to one lucky AoM reader in honor of National Bathroom Reading Month. To enter, all you have to do is sign up for their free daily newsletter. That’s it! They will record every new signup from the AoM readership and select a winner once the sweepstakes is over!

The Toilet Paper calls themselves “Daily News for the Thinking Man.” Their newsletter is the perfect bathroom reading material. Each day, the editors take a current news story and give you the back story on it with interesting tidbits, quotes, and statistics in an easy to read format. Just print it off and take it with you when you’re doing your thing. When you’re done, your brain canister will be filled with some nifty facts and trivia that you can bring up around the water cooler and throughout the day.

Deadline to enter is June 30, 2009. So you have the rest of the month to enter. What are you waiting for? Do it!

And while we’re on the topic of bathroom reading, what do you like to read while you’re on the john? Let us know in the comments below.

Announcing the Art of Manliness Father’s Day Photo Contest

Brett — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:24:18 +0000

As if you didn’t have enough reasons to hang out in the Art of Manliness Community already, one of the best Groups in the Community, the PhotoGroup, has launched AoM’s very first photo contest. The huhman, the Community’s elder statesman and everyone’s all-around favorite Community member, generously set up the whole thing. Here are the details:

CONTEST IS OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS THE ENTIRE MONTH OF JUNE 2009

HOW TO ENTER: Enter a photo by joining the PhotoGroup, and attaching a photo to your response in this discussion, not a new discussion.

CONTEST RULES
1 . Entry photos must somehow be related to “fathers.” (See below for a more thorough explanation of this contest theme.*)

2 . 1 photo per person. Contest is open to all AoM Community members.

3 . Post-processing or photo editing is allowed. Please keep it to a minimum.

4 . Photos must have been taken by the person who submits it. Please do not submit work that isn’t yours. To do so just wouldn’t be manly.

Members are asked to give their opinions about entries. The entries will then be narrowed down to three. This will take place during the first few days after contest ends (6-30-09). The three finalists will be voted on, in a new discussion; and the winner will be determined at the conclusion of the final vote.

Winner’s name will be announced in the AoM Community, as well as on the AoM main site. Grand Prize is a very cool shirt from one of AoM’s best friends, Hawaiiabera. See below… even Brett can look cool in one of these awesome “Friday Night” shirts, from Hawaiiabera (Just having a little fun at your expense Brett, thanks to PhotoShop)

* What is the theme of this photo contest?
In the U.S., and many other countries, June 21, is the day set aside to honor fathers. In keeping with that, we’ve themed our first AoM photo contest around Fathers. (A manly idea, for sure!). Photos can be of your father, your grandfather, you (as a father), or even a snapshot of some random guy doing something in a fatherly way. The possibilities are endless. The point is, this web site is dedicated to the art of manliness; and June is the month set aside to honor fathers. What better time and way than now to do just that! Please caption your entries, and feel free to tell us as much as you’d like to help “capture the moment”. If all goes well, the entries should spark a lot of conversation; and that is exactly what AoM is all about!