This is the 13th post on living the virtuous life like Benjamin Franklin.

Our popular image of manliness usually consists of a man with a cocky swagger, a rebel who blazes his own path and stands confident and ready to take on the world. “Humility” doesn’t seem to fit into this image. Humility oftentimes conjures up images of weakness, submissiveness, and fear. But this is a false idea of humility. Real humility is a sign of strength, authentic confidence, and courage. It is the mark of a true man.

The Hubris of Achilles

The ancient Greeks often wrote about the importance of humility. A reoccurring theme throughout their literature was the shameful, often fatal effects of hubris-excessive, arrogant pride. For the Greeks, hubris meant thinking you were wise when you were not. One story that drives home the importance of manly humility is Homer’s The Iliad.

Throughout The Iliad, we find young Achilles, the invincible Greek soldier, sitting in his tent pouting because King Agamemnon took his slave woman. All the while, Achilles’ countrymen are dying at the hands of the Trojans. Even when Agamemnon apologizes and gives back the woman in hopes that Achilles will start fighting, Achilles still acts like a little bitch and refuses to do so. In fact, he starts to pack up to head back to Greece. He demonstrates a complete lack of humility. While his comrades perish, he seeks to save his own skin because of an inflated sense of self-importance and his arrogant pride.

This pride then results in the great Trojan, Hector, killing Achilles’ friend. It is only then, after it has become too late, that Achilles decides to fight. Even so, it isn’t even for his country; he is motivated by the pull of revenge. After Achilles kills Hector in battle, in an act of complete dishonor, Achilles ties up Hector’s body to a chariot and drags it around the walls of Troy for nine days.

While many today think of Achilles as a hero, to the ancient Greeks he embodied the shameful consequence of hubris. While they admired his legendary fighting ability, the real lesson they took from his story was the need to be humble.

What is humility?

The definition of humility need not include timidity or becoming a wallflower. Instead, humility simply requires a man to think of his abilities and his actions as no greater, and no lesser, than they really are. Real humility then mandates that a man knows and is completely honest with himself. He honestly assesses what are, and to what magnitude he possess talents and gifts, struggles and weaknesses.

Humility is the absence of pride. We are taught to think pride is a good thing. But pride functions only when comparing others to yourself. Don’t base your self-worth on how you stack up to others. Instead, focus on yourself and how you can improve. C.S. Lewis said the following about pride:

The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive-is competitive by its very nature-while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.

What humility is not

In their quest to be humble, people often confuse humility with false modesty. I think we’ve all been guilty of this at one time or another. When we are recognized for a great accomplishment, we act as though what we did really wasn’t that important or that big of a deal. For example, we spend many hours meticulously putting together an excellent presentation for work, and when people praise us we say, “Oh, it was just something I threw together.” We have a tendency to devalue what we’ve done under the pretense of humility. In fact, people often take on the guise of false humility for the sake of receiving more praise and adulation from others. You want people to think “Wow, he said he just threw that together! Imagine what he could do if he had spent hours on it.” When you do something well, don’t toot your own horn excessively, but truthfully acknowledge what you accomplished.

How to practice humility

Give credit where credit is due. The prideful man will take as much credit for a success as he possibly can. The humble man seeks to shine the light on all the other people and strokes of luck that came together to make that success happen. No man rises on the strength of his bootstraps alone. Innate talent, a supportive family member, friend, teacher or coach, and lucky breaks always contribute somewhere down the line.

Don’t name/experience drop. Have you ever been in a conversation with a man who felt it necessary to interject how he’s been to Europe twice, got a 4.0 in college, dines frequently at pricey restaurants, or knows a famous author, at points in the conversation where such tidbits of information didn’t belong? These people are completely annoying and are basically trying let others know how great they are. Their exaggerated sense of self-importance leads them to demand the lion’s share of attention. These men are clearly insecure; they do not think they can win the interest of others without frontloading all of their attention grabbers. A humble man can hold back on sharing his strengths. He understands that others have equally important and interesting stories to share, and his turn will come.

Do what’s expected, but don’t make a big deal about it. My grandparent’s generation understood the idea of fulfilling your duty. In his book, The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw made this observation:

The World War II generation did what was expected of them. But they never talked about it. It was part of the Code. There’s no more telling metaphor than a guy in a football game who does what’s expected of him — makes an open-field tackle — then gets up and dances around. When Jerry Kramer threw the block that won the Ice Bowl in ’67, he just got up and walked off the field.

Why don’t we take a lesson from our grandfathers? Do something because you’re supposed to do it, have a little humility, and shut the hell up about it.

Perform service and charity anonymously. Prideful men want everyone to know when they do a charitable act. They drop the amount of money they donated to a cause into conversation, they post pictures of their service to Facebook, and they never miss a chance to remind someone they served of their generosity towards them. They are obviously doing service for the wrong reason: to stoke their ego and gain acclamation. Real charity is not self-seeking and is done solely for the benefit of others. Next time you do something nice, try keeping it completely to yourself. It’s a tough test of your manly humility.

Stop one-upping people. Few things are more annoying than a man who must constantly one-up others during conversation. You say, “I once went to a Rolling Stones concert.” He says, “I once had backstage passes to a Rolling Stones concert.” Whatever someone says, the one-upper must do him one better. Resist the urge to take part in these pissing contests. You usually end up with pee on your shoe anyway. If you notice someone who wants to engage in this show of one-upmanship, be the better man and let him have his moment of glory. People may talk about that guy’s exciting story the next day, but they’ll remember how much of a gentleman you are years later. Or if that doesn’t work, become an astronaut and walk on the moon:

Related Photos

This is the twelfth post in a series about living Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues.

CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Editor’s Note: Before we get to the post, allow me to head off the would be commenter, who, thinking himself beyond clever, posts something akin to “Benjamin Franklin wasn’t chaste! He was a womanizer!” In truth, this bit of popular knowledge has been greatly exaggerated. Please see here and here.

Also, as we have mentioned time and time again, Franklin openly admitted that he did not live the virtues perfectly. But he felt he was a far better man for having made the attempt to do so. Living the virtuous life doesn’t not mean attaining perfection, but striving to improve oneself.

Ahhh, chastity. A word that can make teenagers blush and grown men cringe. A word that conjures up thoughts of medieval belts, “true love waits” pledge cards, and ranting preachers. Many believe the concept of chastity has no place in a modern, enlightened society. Indeed, in many ways the virtue of chastity is the most difficult to write about. Unlike the other virtues, it is hard to define chastity apart from its relationship to religious beliefs. Yet, while the precise definition of chastity will vary from man to man, there are aspects of this virtue that all men, regardless of belief system, should aspire to.

In today’s sexualized society, promoting chastity is seen as prudish and old fashioned. In the eyes of many, promoting chastity on a men’s site will be seen as almost contradictory. Isn’t manliness all about the notches on your bedpost of the women you have conquered? We propose that manly sexuality shouldn’t be about the number of women a man beds; rather, it should be about focusing one’s sexuality in meaningful relationships.

Sex as a Consumer Good

Sex, it seems, is everywhere. It pops up in every nook and cranny of our day to day lives. We see sex on our television, in our magazines, and on our computers. It is used to sell everything from shampoo to jeans. While once viewed as a sacred mystery, today it has become just another consumer product that can be bought or sold. Sure, people have sold sex since the beginning of history (they don’t call prostitution the oldest profession for nothing). What’s different now is that the very idea of sex has been commercialized and in the process cheapened.

People today approach sex just as they would approach buying a widget. The focus is on YOUR satisfaction and YOUR pleasure. A man thus fantasizes about his next “purchase.” After that hook-up gives him the pleasure he was seeking, he shops around until he finds another person that can satisfy the urge. When he gets tired of that woman or he sees a better and higher end model, he trades-in that person and goes after the upgrade. The problem is that people aren’t things; they’re, well, people. They have hopes, dreams, feelings, and aspirations just like you do.

The Problem with the Hook-Up Culture

On college campuses hooking-up has replaced dating. Guys seldom ask girls on out real dates: outings they have planned ahead of time and which involve just the two of them. And they even less frequently ask that girl to be their girlfriend and enter into monogamous relationships. Instead women and men hook up at bars, Greek houses, and parties. They have their way with each other and then hope never to have a run-in around campus. College is seen as the time to sow one’s wild oats before settling down at some yet to be determined, but definitively far off time.

While many (maybe most?) men see all this as harmless fun, the reality is that there are negative consequences to these hit and run sexual encounters. In truth, “casual sex” is an oxymoron; there is no such thing.

While for some men, sex is just another recreational activity like going to a baseball game, in reality sex is a powerful part of the human experience. Whether you are religious or not, it is wrong to strip sex of any kind of sacredness. The reason sex feels so fantastic is biological propagation insurance; after shooting wooly mammoths and pulling up roots all day, the human race needed a push to overcome the tiredness, get jiggy with it, and perpetuate the human race. Sex is not just erotic and hot, it’s the way in which human life is created. Regardless of how you think the human race came to be, the creation of life is surely imbued with power and mystery. Whether you want it to be or not, sex forms a union between you and the woman you are with. It’s the joining of two bodies together. Powerful hormones and feelings are released when you have sex. Evolution set up these feelings with the intention of bringing two people together to care for a new human life. It’s ridiculous to unite with a woman in this powerful coupling and then change partners like you’re changing a shirt.

Even if you wouldn’t use the word “sacred” with “sex,” it should at least be seen as “special.” Keeping it special means placing some boundaries around it. The extent of these boundaries will vary from man to man. But there are real reasons for not diluting it beyond measure:

Cheap Sex is Crap Sex. Sex is pretty much the most vulnerable thing you can do. You’re totally naked, worried about your performance, and not to be crude, but sticking your body part into another person. Good sex therefore involves a lot of trust. A trust born of real love and intimacy. The kind of intimacy born of late night conversations, dinner dates, fights, and reconciliations. If you’re having sex with someone you don’t love, you’re simply using them as tool for your pleasure. You might as well be doing it with an inflatable doll. The more you are in love with someone, the more fantastic sex is. The more commonplace sex becomes, the less spectacular it will be. This is the “dullness” Ben was referring to.

Casual Sex Disrespects Women. Even if you can get your jollies from a one night stand, no strings attached, that doesn’t mean your partner feels the same way. While you may be in it for the good time, the woman you hook-up with may develop feelings for you. I know there are woman who have no problem with random flings. But I also know more women who want to believe they’re down with hooking-up but feel hurt afterwards. I knew a lot of women in college who had random hook-ups, after which the guys didn’t call, and who suffered from bouts of depression and angst. They never connected the dots, but I have no doubt there was a correlation. And yes, this goes for guys too. You might hook-up with a girl who’s just leading you on, and get your heart crushed when you realize you’ve been played. Wait until your relationship is committed before being intimate.

Casual Sex Doesn’t Prepare You for Sex in a Real Relationship. Those who encourage men to have multiple sexual partners, argue that if you only have sex with a few, or heaven forbid, just one, sexual partner, you won’t know what kind of stuff you like and how to please the partner you finally do settle down with. On VH1′s recent documentary on sex, Woody Allen compares this to getting your driver’s license without having a learner’s permit. But casual sex is ill preparation for the monogamous variety. Good sex requires communication and a willingness to sometimes delay one’s pleasure for your partner’s benefit. But casual sex involves little communication and little incentive to maximize your partner’s pleasure. Sure, you want to show her a good time. But you’re mostly focused on getting off yourself, and hey, you’re never going to see this woman again, so if it’s so-so for her, who cares?

Related to this, is the argument people make for not saving sex for marriage. Now I know this definition of chastity is not embraced by many men. But those who do embrace it are often berated for choosing a life partner without knowing if the two of you are sexually compatible. I think this argument is total bunk. While it makes sense theoretically, how would it play out practically? Does this mean that if a man is totally in love with a woman, and then they have sex and it’s awkward, he would kick her to the curb and scrap the whole relationship? I have honestly never seen this actually happen. Hey, here’s a novel idea: How about if two people are sexually incompatible they work on their communication, maybe even go to therapy together? Pretty mind blowing, huh?

Furthermore, as my friend Dave is fond of saying, “Sex is like ice cream. The more flavors you sample, the harder it becomes to settle on one flavor for the rest of your life.”

Related Photos

This week’s Manival is being hosted at Schaefer’s Blog. Make sure to go by and check it out. If you have a chance, give it a quick Stumble and a review.

Here are a few of my favorites:

The Manly Art of Giving a Toast (@ mitch ross)

Marriage Is Not 50/50 (@ i am husband)

Do’s and Don’ts of Complimenting Your Wife On Mother’s Day (@ discovering dad)

Make sure to tune in to next week’s Manival at The Care and Feeding of Man. If you’d like to submit a post to next week’s Manival, use the submission form. Contributing to the Manival is an easy way to introduce your blog to new readers and generate new traffic, so contribute today!

Related Photos

This is the eleventh post in a series about living Ben Franklin’s 13 virtues.

“TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”

Every day we encounter a thousand little annoyances. Some jerk cuts us off on the way to work, we get a flat tire, someone takes our lunch out of the fridge, and so on. While each incident is seemingly small, they burrow under our skin and fester there. The mundane indignities of life threaten to snuff the very life out of us. We can soon find ourselves exploding at the smallest irritations. We become angry all the time.

In Western society, anger has sometimes been associated with toughness and manliness. We secretly applaud the hothead who finally loses it on the nincompoop who screwed him over. But anger is often a blustery cover for a man who is insecure and weak and has no other recourse to solve his problems and make his point. Truly manliness means being as coolheaded and unflappable as possible no matter what the situation.

Many men use two equally detrimental methods to deal with their anger. Some seek cantharis by giving their anger free reign. But this only magnifies the anger and can have negative consequences for both the angry man and those around him. Other men try to stuff their anger deep down inside. This buried anger eats at their insides and transforms them into bitter and cynical men.

Why seek tranquility?

Anger is one of the key primal passions that you must learn who how to harness. Harnessing your anger will give you strength to reign in your other carnal tendencies. It will also help you make decisions rationally. When you’re angry, you’re not thinking clearly. You may make rash decisions that you will later regret.

Not all anger is without merit. When you learn to harness your anger, you can begin to use anger as a tool. Righteous anger, properly channeled and employed, can drive a man to fight personal, societal, and global wrongs. But when faced with “trifles and accidents common or unavoidable,” the virtue of tranquility must prevail.

Frequent anger is bad for your health. We may think of anger as an emotion, but it affects your physical body as much as your mind. No matter what triggers your anger, whether something truly threatening like a push from an angry drunk, or something small like a billing error from your cell phone provider, your nervous system reacts the same way:

Levels of hormones, like cortisol, increase.
Your breathing gets faster.
Your pulse gets faster.
Your blood pressure rises.
As you heat up, you begin to sweat.
Your pupils dilate.
You may notice sudden headaches.

In prehistoric times this “fight or flight” reaction was enormously helpful. It put you on hyper-alert so that you were ready to take action, whether that was putting up your dukes or high tailing it out there. These days, your body gets all hyped up but then has no outlet to channel this energy into.
Frequently triggering anger’s hormones hurts your heart. Studies have found that men who have normal blood pressure, but high levels of anger are more likely to develop coronary artery disease or have a heart attack. Men who lose their temper the most are three times as likely to have a heart attack as the least angry. Young men, even without a family history of heart disease, who quickly react to stress with anger, are at three times the normal risk of developing premature heart disease and five times more likely to have an early heart attack than their more tranquil peers. Angry men are also more prone to depression and other negative behaviors.

Anger hurts those around you. If you want others to respect and trust you, you must learn how to control your temper. If you explode at every little thing, your co-workers, friends, and family will start to walk on egg shells around you. They’ll constantly fear setting off your temper and feel insecure in your presence. The harm your anger can cause is well-illustrated by the following story:

A BAG OF NAILS

Once upon a time there was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he should hammer a nail in the fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. But gradually, the number of daily nails dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the first day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. He proudly told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone. The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence.

“You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, it won’t matter how many times you say ‘I’m sorry’, the wound is still there.”

Harnessing Your Anger and Practicing Tranquility

A lot of “anger management” gurus recommend that when you get angry, you should count to 100 or take deep breaths before reacting. I don’t think these methods are effective; once anger takes a hold of you, there’s no way you’re going to sit there and twiddle your thumbs before taking action. Instead, you must train your mind to deal with anger before you are confronted with it. You must change your whole mindset, so when irritations beset you, you are ready and prepared to meet them calmly.

Change your perspective on life. Although you may not be conscious of it, the reason you get angry at life’s little annoyances, is that you believe life is supposed to go smoothly. Therefore, when things don’t go your way, you experience this as an irritating deviation from the norm. You must settle in your mind the fact that the nature of life is frustrating and chaotic. When things fall into place, that is the true deviation. Dispense with your unrealistic expectations for life and you will find it far easier to roll with the punches.

Change your perspective on yourself. While some say the root of anger is fear, I believe the heart of anger is selfishness. The angriest of men not only believe life should go smoothly for them, they DEMAND that it does. Angry men feel morally superior to others and thus believe that people should consistently agree, respect, and appreciate them, always kowtowing to their wishes. When this fails to happen, the angry man is hurt and channels this disappointment into anger. The angry man believes that it is okay for others to suffer life’s indignities, but not him. To alleviate anger, you must get off your high horse.

Change Your Perspective on Others. When you mess up or treat someone badly, you often feel bad and find the reason for your offensive behavior. You think things like, “Man, I shouldn’t have yelled at him like that. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep lately and I really feel ragged.” Or “I shouldn’t have cut off that guy, but I have to get to that appointment on time or I might get fired.” Yet, when others do similar things to us, we bubble over with anger, never thinking that they might have done those things for the same reasons we did them. People make mistakes just like you do. Give others the same amount of leniency you lavish on yourself. People aren’t out to get you. They’re having a bad day or they weren’t raised with the right manners. Stop taking it personally.

Kill Your Anger with Logic

Anger, even when justified, often becomes highly irrational. Therefore, the antidote to anger is logic. You must train your mind to rationally think through the things that happen to you before choosing the proper reaction.
Be conscious of your anger and what is causing it. Anger often blinds our minds to the real root of what is bothering us. We often flip out at the closest target or the most recent trigger of our anger, when the underlying cause of the anger is deeper or lies somewhere else. You must develop the strength to be able to sit with your anger and sort through it. Once you can rationally examine your anger, you can find the root cause and address it. Part of what makes us so angry is not truly understanding what is pissing us off. Think about when a plane is delayed. When no reason is given for the delay, people get more angry than if a legitimate reason is cited. Understanding the reasons for your anger will help you defuse it. You can then rationally, but assertively rectify the situation.

Be willing to admit that you are the cause of your anger. The reason that traffic makes you so angry, is that you left home 10 minutes to late. The reason you’re mad that you wife keeps nagging you about mowing the lawn, is that you keep putting it off.

Learn to ask yourself this question: is this situation something I can change or something I cannot change? If the situation or person which is angering you is something you can change, then there is no reason to be angry. Channel your energy into coming up with a plan to solve the problem. If the situation or person is something you cannot change, again, there is no reason to be angry. There’s nothing you can do about it, so there is no reason to get all bent out of shape. Men are natural problem solvers; we want to come up with a solution for everything. But manliness also means learning to accept and come to a peace with that which we cannot change.

Sources:

WebMD

APA

Menweb

Anger and Aversion

A

Related Photos

This a 10th post in a series about the Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues.

CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

A common stereotype that society places on males is that of the sloppy and unkempt man. We see it all the time on television. A man sitting in his man chair with potato chip crumbs all over himself.

Beer cans and old pizza cartons are stacked throughout the room. The fellow is usually wearing a crummy t-shirt with food stains all over it. This sad image is what some would say represents manliness.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

While many think that only effeminate men would take the time to care about cleanliness; manly men understand that taking pride in cleanliness develops one’s attention to detail, work ethic, and self confidence. Moreover, cleanliness facilitates the orderly development of one’s life.

The History of Cleanliness

While the meaning of all the virtues has changed overtime, the application of the virtue of cleanliness has perhaps fluctuated the most. We would probably be grossed out by Franklin’s standard of cleanliness, and today’s standard would likely have disturbed him. Historically and up through the present day, ideas of what constitutes “cleanliness” has varied greatly.

For an ancient Egyptian or Babylonian, cleanliness meant showering with water from aqueducts or simply from servants pouring water on you. A soap made from ashes and animal fat was used. The Greeks created the first plumbed-in showers, and citizens showered outside at various spigots scattered throughout their cities.

For an ancient Roman cleanliness meant rubbing his body with oil and dust and then adding a layer of perspiration from a day of work or play. After he had built up a sufficient patina of bodily soil, he’d have someone scrape it off with a rake-like instrument. Next he would take a series of baths-first lukewarm, then hot, then cold. This would all occur in public at a local bathhouse, a swinging place where he’d hang out for several hours. Soap was not typically involved in any part of the process.

For early Christians, cleanliness was not next to godliness. In fact, the dirtier you were, the more virtuous you were assumed to be. Cleanliness was considered a sinful luxury and thus monks and nuns who cared more for God than their earthly tabernacles avoided bathing to show their dedication to a holy life.

For Europeans in the centuries after the coming of the Black Death, cleanliness meant anything but a bath. To observers during the plague, it seemed that people often became stricken with the disease after using the bathhouse. The theory was advanced that bathing opened your pores and thus let in disease. A layer of dirt and odor was thought to stave off infection. Bathing became avoided like, well, the plague. It would not be until the 17th century when bathing would slowly come back into vogue.

Even then, for a gentlemen in 17th century France, cleanliness meant the frequent changing of his linen shirt. It was believed that linen had a special wicking power that pulled dirt and impurities from the body like a magnet. Changing one’s shirt was thought to be as effective as a good scrubbing in the bath.

Frequent bathing and showering would not become popular until the mid-1800′s when the discovery of germs was coupled with advancements in indoor plumbing and shower technology.

But it would really be the purveyors of hygienic products that would continually up the ante of what cleanliness truly meant. As advertising became more prevalent in the early 1900′s, the producers of soap, deodorant, and toothpaste set out to convince a new generation of Americans of problems they never knew existed. For example, it was Listerine’s advertising team, not dentists, who came up with the term “chronic halitosis” to describe bad breath. Whereas as bad breath had previously been thought of as a part of life, it then became a dangerous disease to be cured and eradicated. Likewise, toothpaste manufacturers made the frightening discovery of “film on teeth,” a phenomenon that had once gone completely unnoticed. The cure of course was daily and religious tooth brushing. Advertisements warned potential customers that any kind of bodily odor could spell a premature social death.

Why is Cleanliness a Virtue?

Can such a changing, and sometimes advertiser driven concept really be a virtue? Yes. While the standard of cleanliness may vary from time period to time period, and from culture to culture, meeting the standard of your time and place is not without merit.

Cleanliness makes your feel good. Regardless of whether the feeling is inherent, or created by social conditioning, keeping your body, clothes, and home clean feels undeniably great. A hot shower, your favorite clean shirt, and a well organized house make you feel ready to take on the world.

Cleanliness keeps your mind clear and your life organized. If your house is a total disaster, your thinking is going to feel similarly disorganized. There is something to be said for the concept of Feng Shui. There is an natural connection between the order of your environment and the state of your mind. Clutter will weigh you down and stress you out. A clean, well-organized environment will lift your spirits.

Cleanliness gives you a good image. How you present yourself in life is paramount. If you, your clothes, or your house looks like a disheveled mess, people are inevitably going to judge part of your character and personality on such evidence. Perhaps that is unfair, but it is how the world works. When you present a neat and clean appearance to others, they will respect and think highly of you.

Cleanliness leads to beauty. That which is neat, well-proportioned, and symmetrical creates beauty and appeals to the eye. As we transform our lives to be orderly and clean, we increase the amount of beauty in our lives.

Finding Balance in Cleanliness

The key to the virtue of cleanliness, as with all the virtues, is moderation. Don’t be a clean freak. Don’t be a germ phobe. It is amazing how many new ways companies have come up with to enable us to kill germs. We can now spray the air to rid it of scary particles and zap our toothbrush with UV rays to keep it hyper-hygienic. Every news show cannot resist doing a program revealing the many creepy crawly bacteria lurking on telephones and toilets. Most of these scaremonger attempts, designed to frighten you into hygienic overdrive, can be disregarded. Our great grandparents worked up a far greater sweat than we do, and yet didn’t tote around hand sanitizer, shower twice a day, or Lysol the hell out of every touchable surface.

In fact, modern society’s unhealthy obsession with cleanliness is actually making us sicker. Our immune system is like a muscle. It needs to come into contact with dirt and germs so it can develop the strength it needs to fight the sicknesses that come along with dirt and germs. If your immune system lacks experience in taking on bacteria, when it finally encounters some, the bacteria will triumph.

Also remember, there’s nothing wrong with smelling like a human being, like a man. Seneca, Roman orator and writer, rebuked bathe lovers for not smelling “of the army, of farm work, and of manliness.” While the purveyors of Axe body spray and the like attempt to sell the idea that coating your body with an artificial aerosol scent is the way to attract the ladies, my personal anecdotal experience doesn’t bear this out. My wife loves to smell my armpits’ mixture of deodorant and man scent. And she likes my man scent in general. Other women have told me the same thing about the men in their lives. Women like the natural scent of a man.

Cleanliness in Practice

Don’t Live like a Slob. Our society, a vacuum of true manliness, pushes the idea that all men are slobs. Yet there is nothing inherently manly about slovenly living. Everyone, men and women alike, have a natural tendency to take the the path of least resistance when it comes to cleanliness. Cleanliness takes work. But our culture often gives men a pass to revel in their sloppy tendencies. Don’t drop things on the floor, don’t leave dishes in the sink, don’t leave your clutter all around the house. You’ll not only create a more pleasant environment, you’ll stop creating extra work for your wife.

Establish a Daily Cleaning Regimen. The problem many men have with keeping their home clean is that they let the clutter and dirt build up until cleaning seems like an insurmountable task. Instead of waiting for this to happen, establish a 10 minute cleaning routine and resolve to perform it daily. Here’s my recommended regimen:

• When you get out of the shower, spray it down with a mold and mildew prevention spray. This will keep your shower clean and increase the time between deep cleanings.

• Keep disposable cleaning wipes on the sink. When you are done brushing your teeth and shaving, wipe down the sink and mirror with one of the wipes.

• Spend 5 minutes before you go to bed picking up any clutter than has arisen during the day.

Don’t Dress Like a Slob. Take some pride in your appearance. Don’t be a metrosexual, but don’t be slovenly mess either. The other day I was out to eat and I was amazed at how slobby everyone was dressed. Men and boys were in mesh basketball shorts, wind pants, and sleeveless shirts, wearing their baseball cap backwards. Don’t get me wrong. The I’m not saying that a place like Chili’s is the paragon of fancy dining and thus necessitates formal attire. But would it hurt to put on at least a pair nice khaki pants and t-shirt that covers your arms?

• If your shirt needs ironing, iron it. And don’t try to convince yourself that by not ironing it, you’re capturing a sort of rugged New England-I-spent-the-day-sailing look. No, you look like a tool who didn’t iron their shirt.

• Don’t use your dirty clothes basket or the floor as your closet. If it’s still clean, put it back in your dresser or on a hanger. If you put something in the hamper, it means it needs to be washed. Wash your clothes frequently enough that you don’t have to rummage through your dirty clothes to find something to wear. Whatever you pick out of your hamper is going to be wrinkly and smell bad.

Basic Grooming. To present a neat and clean appearance (and to please the woman in your life) here are the hygiene basics every man should adhere to. You’d think this stuff would be common sense, but I’m constantly surprised by the number of men who seem clueless about the basics of cleanliness.

• Use a Q-tip in your ears every now and then. Nothing grosses out the ladies like orange waxy ear build up.

• Trim any excessive nose and ear hair. Nobody wants to see daddy long legs coming out of your nostrils. Keep them neat.

• Trim your unibrow. While men should NOT pluck or wax their eyebrows, there should be a clear separation between each one.

• Trim your toenails and fingernails. Some men let their toenails grow to sloth size. Nothing will kill passion in the bedroom like a your gross sloth toenail scraping your wife’s leg. First, you could cut her leg. Second, it’s just going to gross her out. Unless you’re a guitar player, keep your nails short.
• Shower regularly. You would think it wouldn’t have to be said, but I know plenty of women who complain about the frequency, or lack thereof of their man’s showering. It doesn’t have to be every day, but don’t think people don’t notice when you’re greasy and stinky. Always shower after working out.

The Best Personal Cleanliness Tip That You’re Not Doing. Men are somewhat notorious for having bad breath. It grosses out your wife and your co-workers. If you are taking women on dates, it can ruin your first kiss, and all the kisses thereafter. A lot of men try to cure their bad breath with toothbrushing, flossing, and mints. While these all have their place, the best way to clean your mouth us by using a tongue scraper.

The majority of bad breath is not caused by the food that you eat, but rather originates from the back of your tongue. There, bacteria, decaying food particles, and even discharge from your nasal cavities, breeds and emits a foul odor. Brushing your teeth won’t get rid of it. Even brushing your tongue with your tooth brush won’t get it all. And breath mints and gum don’t remove it either. Your tongue is like a lush carpet and the germs hide in the nooks and crannies. You need a tongue scraper to sweep them out. A mouth post-tongue scrape is remarkably clean, and the results are instantaneous. You can tell the difference right after you scrape.

If you are afraid of waking up to your significant other with monstrous morning breath, just make sure you scrape your tongue before bed. Your morning breath will be significantly tamed. And you won’t have to employ the old back of the hand sniff test.

Related Photos