A Cold, Hard, Philosophical Truth
“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.” - Baruch Spinoza
Sometimes it’s easy to feel like you are on your own little purposeful island watching from a plentiful beach as others zig-zag through the waters of life in search of a dry shore. I stumbled across a quote from someone named Katelyn Gleason yesterday that spoke to my own personal truth.
”A decade or so of unreasonably hard work is the barrier of entry to a rare life.”
I found it somewhat ironic that the quote came from a woman, although it absolutely applies every bit as much to her as it does to a man, but it is a truth that almost any guy with any sense at all learns and understands from his very first day of high school, the day when that truth presents a glass barrier before him which he will never pass through any other way than to work his way through it. Let me explain.
Women are attracted to success. Due to this they intrinsically prefer older, confident men, as she can more easily determine that man’s value to her and her potential children. Has he sacrificed those years between he and she, putting in the work to improve himself? Or has he sloughed those years away, complaining that life is too hard, and that others only succeed because of their better educations, or their better looks, or their higher stations in life, or even their race? You have to wonder if the people who say such things actually put in the work required to find that out, but you don’t have to wonder about it for long. Those types always choose the easiest, quickest routes to nowhere.
People who work hard for success loathe a whiner.
It is no secret that boys are visually attracted to girls. It is why, on the whole, women are more attractive than men are. And a boy learns hard and fast that the pretty girls his own age who showed him any interest in middle school lose that interest on the very first day of high school, those girls now having eyes for the juniors and seniors as they seek to up their reputations. I cannot tell you how many times I was blown off by that girl who, “has a boyfriend in college.” Sheesh! But that freshman boy also sees that those older guys who are successful at something, at anything really, be it football, debate, auto-shop, or science; those are the guys who attract the attentions of the most girls, and the prettiest girls. It is one of those “ah-ha” moments for our young man. “If I put in the work now to raise my status in their eyes, it might pay off for me later.” And so he sacrifices now for then. His life actually starts on that day when work becomes his motivation, rather than play.
Some guys do luck out, admittedly, and girls pay them attention from the very start… at least through school days. But sooner or later those dudes will also hit that glass barrier, and when he does, if he has any sense, he will pick it up a notch. It is rarely too late to begin your ten years of unreasonably hard work, and is always better late than never, as the saying goes.
After ten years of improving himself and learning to be a man the guy who put in
those “years of unreasonably hard work” will find himself competent, confident, with a good job, and in the enviable position of having his pick of younger women, women who crave his newly higher status. But strangely, during those years our man’s tastes have changed. He finds that he is no longer necessarily interested in the prettiest, cheerleader type girl, at least not as a life partner, although there still is that in the short term, but he finds himself drawn more to the ones who have also sacrificed, holding on to their own values, and to their good reputations. A man who has sacrificed and put in the work does not want a woman who will embarrass him, or worse, might be an embarrassment to his family later on. Having worked so hard on improving himself, he finds himself drawn now to a woman‘s character as much as he is to her beauty, so he seeks the woman who has both. Has she worked to improve herself?
Those out there who do not understand these truths, male and female, are doomed either to “settle” for someone who shirks their way through life, believing that success only comes to those who are lucky or privileged without ever having really given it a go. Or they wind up depressed and alone. Both are pretty poopy options.
So, I say 10 years is about right, Katelyn Gleason. Ten years of sacrificing is what it ultimately requires; ten years of working longer than your scheduled hours, of holding off on a family, of sleeping alone, of both mental and physical learning, growing, and achieving. It takes ten years to make a better man; a better decision maker, a better husband, and a better father.
Ten years… if he puts in that unreasonably hard work.