homeless_guy

When you lose everything, it can seem as if the whole world is against you.

Our wives and girlfriends leave us. We lose our jobs. Our houses get taken away. Cars repossessed. Kids leave with the wives. Everywhere we turn, something is being taken away from us. Even our friends and family who were there when we were doing good turn their backs on us when we have nothing to offer. It’s enough to make even the strongest of men give up.

I know how hopeless this can all seem because at one time I was there myself. There was a point in my life when I was unemployed and broke. Had no friends, and family could care less how I was doing. And to make matters even worse, I had never had a date in my life. This caused a lot of depression in my life, and at times made me feel as if things would never get better.

This is a common problem with men these days, because they get into all kinds of similar positions and feel as if, no matter how hard they try, nothing will ever get better for them. Men carry a ton of weight on our shoulders because of what we’re told growing up. We’re told to get good jobs in order to take care of our families. When we can’t do this, we automatically feel like a failure. It becomes very easy to start playing and acting like a victim instead of realizing that the worst enemy each of us has is himself.

We stop working towards becoming successful, because we start believing that the whole world is against us and others have an easier time getting what we want, like it’s some type of conspiracy. Instead of being more social, we start thinking that nobody will like us, and crawl into a shell and rot. Then the depression starts, followed by the pity party. As soon as we don’t get the attention that we want from others, we cry like a baby.

We need to start picking ourselves up, guys, and start being grateful for what we have. There are people out there who are homeless and would give anything to have what we take for granted for just one day. They’d love to have a hot shower. A nutritious meal. And clean, comfortable sheets to sleep in. We tend to get so caught up with what we don’t have that we forget what we do have, and that’s why we have the problems that we do. Everybody wants more material possessions, and when they don’t have them, they see that as failure. It’s not the amount of stuff that we own, but rather who we are inside that makes us truly rich and successful. Like a sensei I had told me one time when I was taking up Martial Arts, “They can take away all your money and material possessions – but they can never take away who you are inside.”

So stop playing victim, guys, and crying about how badly life is treating you – and get out there and make things happen instead.