Ah, the holidays. That special time of year where you clip the wings you spent two decades (or more) developing and come back to your parents’ nest to squawk about whose life is the best in the least subtle humblebrag contest fueled by eggnog and years spent resenting your older brother for being the favorite.
Fucking Greg.
You being pathetic aside, the holidays are a time of year that, even in our ever more disconnected offline world, most people find the time to make their way back to their hometowns or wherever their parents/bulk of their family now reside.
For those of us old enough to remember President Bush (daddy, not dubya) that’s most likely Florida. So while you’re enjoying golfing with your Pa be careful to drive around the tweakers tripping their balls off on angel dust and making sandtrap “snowangels” in 70 degree weather in December.
For the rest of us, wherever you find yourself spending the Holiday season you’ll likely find yourself in the same situation as ever. You get home, every comments on how much weight you’ve gained/lost, your job situation, and why you aren’t married yet. Don’t worry, that last one is only so when you step out of the room they can comment to your nearest Aunt about how they always knew you were gay.
Then come the gift giving. Whether you celebrate fullblown CHRISTmas, or Xmas, or Hannukah, or Secular Gift Giving Holiday #1, the vast majority of us put up with our inlaws and estranged blood for one reason: iTunes gift cards.
Because you’re hard to shop for, but you do computer stuff a lot, and everybody loves music so here you go. The receipt is in the bag. It’s always in the bag.
Has anyone ever been able to successfully return one of those prepaid cards of any variety?
So if that’s what you’re getting for the Holidays, the question becomes what gifts do you bring? Other than your presence, of course.
Actually, anything other than you presence.
The fact of the matter is that your lack of presence the other 364 days in a year is your gift to everyone, yourself included.
Whether you’re just getting started out of high school at 18, or you’re more of a “finishing grad school any day now” at 31, the Millennial Gen has the highest percentage of people still living back home since the late 60s. 36% of people in the age bracket still live dependent on other people.
That’s 21,600,000 grown ass men and women living at home. 21.6 MILLION people, still living at home where someone else can do their laundry and cook for them.
You’re the biggest lot of layabouts since the hippies. The joint doesn’t stink as bad though. Your mom’s Glade candles see to that.
Now I’m sure at this point, there are a few of you out there that are knocking the crumbs off your Toy Story pillow case so you can comfortably sit up and tell me in the comments that you’re living at home because you are still in college/have student loans/trying to get on your feet/etc.
That’s fine. No one can fault you, least of all me, for needing a bit of short term financial assistance. It is much cheaper to stay at home where your rent is non-existent or criminally cheap.
The caveat is that it is often not “short-term.” For a large number of men and women who grew up in this generation make the mistake of using that safety blanket of living at home for far longer than short term. While it makes perfect sense to save money where you can due to the rising cost of school or the housing market, etc., they lose the ability to discern objectively when they still need help, and when they’re just being cowards.
Women have it easier in this regard. A decently attractive women will always have the option of never amounting to much, living at home, and then just marrying the wealthiest provider she can snag within arm’s reach.
For men, this unacceptable. If you are following this website out of anything more than an idle curiosity, you’ll note that I have iterated and reiterated that men have lost the drive to aim for more. The whole purpose of this site is to teach men how to aim to join the ranks of the mythic. Those legends of men that are still talked about in the classroom, forum, books, and movies.
You simply cannot hope to have a statue carved in your honor by playing Starcraft in your room at your mom’s house.
Unless your mom’s house is in South Korea. In which case, Zerg Rush on you bastard.
For the rest of us who refuse to acquire a taste for K-Pop and pixelated intercourse, we must become a better version of ourselves. The “best you can be” sounds good on paper, but it’s kind of vague and open to interpretation for everyone. “Healthy, wealthy and wise” is almost as vague, but just as applicable.
If you look pretty good, your bills are paid, and people give a damn about what you think about things, most would consider that a pretty good baseline for what “success means.”
So why, specifically, does moving out prove to be the best gift? Because every man who has ever been successful in relationships, business, athletics, or any field where your skill in the subject meant the difference between victory or defeat will tell you that to succeed you must at first struggle.
There is simply way way around it. No one, not lottery winners – especially not lottery winners, has ever become successful without the ability to lose over and over, a little less each time.
Why does losing make you a man? Because losing sucks ass. Losing hurts. It wounds your pride and makes you do it again until you get it right.
Losing makes you a man by giving you no choice to be anything but. You have to develop thick skin. You have to develop the ability to learn from your mistakes. You have to learn to burn.
You have to burn with the desire to stop. fucking. losing.
So long as you’re content being a loser, that’s all you’ll ever be.
And so long as you’re still living “back home,” a loser is all you’ll ever be. Why? Because so long as you have that safety blanket, you’ll never truly struggle.
You’ll never develop the ability to function as a man because you’ll never have to.
How many children in Africa do you think know how to snowboard? Out of all of them, how many would you wager have the skill to maneuver that board like a pro?
So long as you live with whom and where you grew up, you’ll never develop the skills you need to live elsewhere.
Remember when you were a kid and you were learning to ride a bike? Do you remember the first time you ever took off on your own, pedaling under your own power without anyone holding you up? Do you remember that excitement? The pride you felt in yourself for doing it?
Now remember all the times before that, that you fell on your face. Remember how bad the scuffs and scrapes stung? Maybe you still have a scar. Do you remember failing a lot until you figured out how to do it on your own?
Every single fall was necessary to teach you how to ride that bike. You didn’t learn how to ride because you wanted to ride. You learned how to ride because you wanted to stop headbutting the pavement.
Living at home is like living life with the training wheels on. You clearly can’t do it on your own, and you look like a fucking sissy.
Moving out is the big boy version of that feeling of the first time you are able to stay up for a length of time on your bike without help. It’s the more fulfilling version of that feeling of the first time your parents trust you to drive their car.
Moving out is the best gift you can give yourself: independence.
It’s you saying to yourself, and to others “I’ve got this.” It’s betting on yourself to survive under your own power. Beholden to no one but yourself and relying on the same.
I can quote things to you all day by famous successful men, like Schwarzenegger’s “hands in your pockets,” but you don’t need an analogy to understand that men who don’t risk something for greatness will never achieve it.
The problem with being comfortable is that it’s comfortable. Choosing comfort is choosing to stay in your warm bed instead of going for a 5AM run, but then wondering why you never became an Olympic runner.
You have to do uncomfortable things to do extraordinary things.
Everybody goes for what’s comforting. It’s common. Every single person on the planet has chosen what feels good, or nice, or easier over what is hard, simple, or uncomplicated at least once.
Even lightning follows the path of least resistance.
Are you seriously gambling your success in life on the odds of getting struck by lightning?
Moving out teaches you independence. It teaches you to stand on your own. It teaches you to build a strong foundation that can support you and then others. It forces you to man up. It makes you stop running to mommy every time it gets hard.
If your kids get sick are you going to call your mom and have her set up the doctor’s appointment?
That’s the gift to everyone else. Being independent, handling your own life, taking care of business. “I got this.” That is the best gift you can give your family. Knowing that they have someone there they can lean on when times get rough. Knowing that there is someone capable. Knowing that when all hell breaks loose, there’s a man there to keep everything orderly and do what needs to be done.
That’s the gift to your parents. Or whomever raised you, honestly. It’s letting them know, in “living proof” that they succeeded. Their job is done. They did what they set out to do. Achievement Unlocked: Raised a Kid.
I’m sure your parents love you anyway, even if you are still at home at 35. It happens, rarely, but sometimes people really do try hard and just get stuck at home anyway. This is not for them.
For those of you who are really going to move out. This is not for you, though you can probably shave some time off that time frame if you really wanted to.
This is for the ones who are content living at home for ever how long they can milk it.
Your parents love you, but they’re disappointed in you. No matter what they tell you, they’ll always be proud of what little you have accomplished but do not kid yourself into believing that if you made more of yourself they would be indifferent. They would be even more proud, as they should.
You’re frustrating your parents and likely making them feel like they failed somewhere along the way.
And when they eventually die, you will think about it. This I promise you. You’ll realize that they never got to live long enough to see you succeed. Who can blame them though? At your pace, they would’ve had to live to see the tricentennial to see you make something of yourself.
Quicken your pace. It won’t kill you, but aim for one that feels like it will.
The problem with men whose weak will prevents them from breaking out of the chains of comfort of living at home is that they still feel entitled to relying on that safety net.
How many men have you met who still live at home who have done something at some point that reminded you just how “under their parents’ rules” they were?
You know the type. His parents don’t like when he drinks, or smokes weed, or makes too much noise when he gets home late from a party and his rebuttal is “I’m X years old. I’m a grown ass man. I can do what I want!”
At no point is he less of an adult than at that moment where he has to remind others he is. That’s the problem of using the safety system of “I’m your kid, care for me!” It ruins any claim to not being a dependent child you may have.
You’re like those 300 pound women who want a 6’4 Adonis. You have done nothing to deserve what you’re asking for. You want a lot of benefits without doing your duty to earn them.
You can’t claim “I’m a grown ass man” which implies independence, while also having someone else paying your living expenses.
You’re either reliant or reliable.
You want to drink bourbon in your boxers at 9AM on a Sunday? Fine, your business, but you have to earn that right. And if your mom is still washing your boxers, you don’t have that right. You’ve forfeited that freedom for comfort.
So how do you change it? For one, stay tuned here. This blog is for men like you. Men who have no idea how to become your own legend, but want to.
For two, a change of mindset is in order. Stop viewing the ability to move back home as an option. You have to stop looking as your parents acting like your parents (read: taking care of you) as a possibility.
If you want to be an adult, you have to stop treating your parents like your parents and treat them like your peers.
Imagine if you had a best friend, someone near your age or social standing, who was currently “in between” jobs. Or just needed to crash on your couch “for a few days” after his girlfriend dumped him or similar. If you care about your friend, you probably won’t care to help. You like having him around. He’s good company and it feels good to help someone you care about who needs it.
Now imagine if that person repaid you by sitting in his stained boxers on the living room couch while you were on your laptop doing a Skype call with your boss.
Or if while you were busy using your one hour of freetime this week on something you enjoy, they made it a point to ask what you were fixing them for dinner and also they needed to borrow $50 after you loaned them $20 earlier that week.
How long before you kicked them out? Even if you didn’t, how long before you stopped considering this friend, no matter his age, a grown ass man and started considering him at best a child and at worst a parasite?
Less time than it took me to type that sentence, I’m sure.
That’s it. That’s the beginning. If you want to join the Adult Club, you need to stop expecting the benefits of the kid and also the benefits of adulthood.
You’ve got to be willing to suffer and risk and figure it out on your own. You have to be willing to get scraped up before you can figure out how to keep it upright on your own.
You’ve got to figure out how to rely on yourself so you can be a reliable person.
That’s what it means to be an adult. Even if it’s only yourself, someone has to be able to rely on you.
Headbutt that pavement as hard as you can gents.
Join me next time when I explain how washing dishes can save your marriage and make you successful in business.
Legends of Men 