Manvotionals

To Risk To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out is to risk involvement, To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being [...]

Watch Yourself Go By By: Strickland Gillilan Just stand aside and watch yourself go by; Think of yourself as “he” instead of “I.” Note, closely as in other men you note The bag-kneed trousers and the seedy coat. Pick flaws; find fault; forget the man is you, And strive to make your estimate ring true. [...]

To Monday’s post on hustle, I’d like to add just one more thing: It’s not enough to just be busy all the time. You have to direct and focus your energy on a clear goal! This Manvotional sums this point up nicely. “Activity Is Not Always Energy” from Readings for Young Men, Merchants and Men [...]

“The Improvement of Time” From Manhood: It’s Duties and Responsibilities, 1854 Share Time is precious in relation to the engagements of the day; in relation to the frightful loss of the past, requiring to be redeemed; in relation to its brief duration and rapid flight; and in its probationary relation to the future. It has [...]

The Kingship of Self-Control from Self control, its Kingship and Majesty by William George Jordan, 1905 Share When a man fails in life he usually says, ” I am as God made me.” When he succeeds he proudly proclaims himself a ” self-made man.” Man is placed into this world not as a finality,— but [...]

Walt Whitman wrote the poem “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” as an ode to the pioneers who had struck out in search of  adventure and a better life and settled the wild of the American West. He praises the rugged resiliency, the daring courage, and the fearless resolution of those who left the past behind to hew [...]

Share Energetic  Men We love upright, energetic men. Pull them this way, and then that way, and the other, and they only bend, but never break. Trip them down, and in a trice they are on their feet. Bury them in the mud, and in an hour they will be out and bright. They are [...]

Image from anniebee Advice to my Son by J. Peter Meinke The trick is, to live your days as if each one may be your last (for they go fast, and young men lose their lives in strange and unimaginable ways) but at the same time, plan long range (for they go slow; if you [...]

Learning to be a man begins at an early age. Boys try to mimic the manly things they see their fathers and other men do. When they get older, they seek the advice of older men on what it takes to be a man. This short essay from Draper’s Self Culture was published in 1907 [...]