I heard this quote the other day and I took a moment to pause and reflect what it meant to me as a man. The meaning I believe is rooted in being able to move through life's pains, struggles and moments of suffering with grace and to be able to find joy in the simple things in life along the way. To push on in the face of adversity, bend but never break.
While I believe deeply in this mantra and feel it an important aspect to how we as men lead at work, lead in our family and in our community - it can also over time be our worst enemy. Many of us are a vehicle that is run on stoicism. "Man up" is a common term that all of us have heard throughout our life and one that is engrained so deeply at our core that we seldom take inventory of our inner world.
There has been a growing popularity of "rucking" in recent years within the fitness world. This is simply the action of walking with added weight on your back. While the intent of rucking is to help improve strength, cardiovascular capacity, caloric burn, balance and bone density through added stress to the body, if not done mindfully and in a balanced fashion - can lead to various injuries. Overloading the backpack can cause strain in the back, shoulders, and neck, causing muscle soreness, strains, or even herniated discs.
Us as men carry a few rucking backpacks each and everyday that are filled with our work, our family and our social commitments. What I have found over the years is that as we move into our mid 30s to early 40s those backpacks filled with our life are quite heavy, very unbalanced and most of the time haven't been opened up to really see what is inside. It's weighing us down but we choose to carry it anyways. We seem to have it all together on paper and and from the outside. We continue to just carry the load in a stoic manner. We are men, we can just "suck it up".
I myself was this way for as long as I can remember. As I navigated my 30s and started to move into my 40s I had established myself professionally, I had a family, was in the early stages of fatherhood and had my social circle. But I had never taken inventory on what I had been carrying around all this time. It slowly started with some generalized anxiety and stress which then presented itself as bouts of insomnia and irregular sleep patterns. Then my energy levels started to plummet and the brain fog kicked in daily. Now my clarity and decision making power started to take a hit. My overall vitality was short circuiting. Later on I ended up in the hospital with a 106 degree temperature that would persist around 100-103 degrees for the next 90 days. Shortly thereafter, I herniated a disc in my cervical spine that partially landed on my spinal cord. I was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and subsequently would have multiple herniations in my lumbar spine.
"Sometimes it's not the load that breaks you, it's the way you carry it"
I was in a place of despair and I knew the first step in becoming a truly tougher man was to understand that the stoic way wasn't really the way at all. I realized that you can't tackle every challenge through sheer force of will. In certain cases this may work, but eventually this will cause burnout and in my case it presented itself in the body in a myriad of ways. I found it’s better to slow down, orient yourself, and make thoughtful decisions on how to best move forward. I found the key to navigating life's weight that we carry is learning how to maneuver the inner turbulence you experience with life's obstacles. The more pressured a situation, the more likely that if we just "fight through it" that over time the stressors on the mind and body will be too much that it will eventually show up in some shape or form. If you can figure out ways of slowing down and truly try to examine and recognize what's happening within you, that will allow for enough space to manage the situation. This will allow for the best decision to take form, not the easiest one.
So many of us men today have our rucking backpacks filled with life's stressors strapped to our back while we march up the mountain of life due to the stringent demands of the workplace, marriage, family, fatherhood and constant social commitments. We are all constantly trying to solve our own mental and physical health equation but the answer seemingly never seems to be anywhere in sight. I believe the answer starts with how we redefine toughness as a man. And from introspection, answers to this health equation will become much more clear. Not only does every man and their loved ones benefit from this, but the world benefits from this and needs more strong leaders, husbands and fathers.
