I was asked about men’s mental health
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Wow. This is a big one. I first want to acknowledge the psychologist that commented asking me to remind my audience that there is nothing wrong with therapy. I agree 100 percent. I talked about this in a previous newsletter, but you should treat your mind no differently than your body. You have to train both. If your knee was holding you back and making you limp everywhere, you’d go see a physical therapist. There is no shame at all in admitting you need help with your mind. None. In fact, if you’re thinking about giving money to some guru who promises to make your life perfect, spend it on a therapist instead. Let’s train those minds.
So… back to the question. I don’t know what’s going on with men’s mental health. I see articles about a mental health crisis among men. But I also see articles about a mental health crisis among young women and girls. It seems like we might just have a human crisis.
I’m not an expert. You’d be better off asking the psychologist who asked me to make a comment about therapy. But you want my opinion, and so did she. So I’ll share it.
I am simple, so I ask myself what changed. Here is what I see: social media. People spend all day online, and there are a lot of bullshit artists and charlatans and outrage salespeople on the internet; the “influencers” who tell you that you have to wear this or you’re worthless, the people who tell you the world is falling apart even though by most measures it is better than ever, or the shysters who sell you some bogus class about how to be a man. I’ll give you guys a hint: nobody needs a class on that. And nobody who is a real leader goes around calling themselves an “alpha.” It’s absurd. If anybody did that in Gold’s Gym we would have laughed until they stopped.
Social media has caused a crisis of confidence because people lose their sense of purpose scrolling feeds all day. They’re told to be scared, and they’re told they aren’t good enough. We need to sign off and build up confidence in the real world, which I talked about earlier this week as something you do by taking a small step to do the thing that makes you uncomfortable and then taking a bigger step and on and on. You don’t need to project this crap on the internet. That’s fake confidence. The real kind takes work and constant reps and feeling uncomfortable, and too many people shy away from all of those things. I think people aren’t willing to feel a little out of their comfort zone for even a minute, but life isn’t going to be comfortable all the time, so it throws them out of whack when they hit the crappy parts.
If I could tell these men and women anything, it would be to turn off the social media, think about your biggest insecurity, and go start working on it out in the real world. Go outside, exercise, talk to real people. Stop listening to these influencers and what they think you need. They are selling you. And before anyone says I’m “throwing shade” at someone specific, I just learned about all this how to be a man stuff recently when a reporter said to me that I was the antithesis of a few of these shysters I hadn’t heard of, and I couldn’t believe it is happening. But I am happy to be here to provide a positive voice on social media and the internet.
And again, I’m not an expert. If you’re struggling, get help. That takes real strength.
