For many of us, we can spend so much time focusing on the problems of men in society, or complaining about the latest attack on toxic masculinity in the media, that we forget how good our own opportunities are. Just because there’s so much bad in the world doesn’t mean you can’t personally succeed. And the more that you succeed, the more you are able to do to help other people and be a positive influence in society. 

Two things can be true at the same time:

1. Men in general are underperforming in society relative to women, and have a large numbers of struggles in education, employment, with finding purpose in life, substance abuse, etc.
2. It’s never been a better time to be a man who has his act together.

So much of the discussion of men today talks about their problems. The problems they have, as with Richard Reeves book Of Boys and Men. Or the problems they cause, as with the endless complaints about “toxic masculinity.”

But you shouldn’t just look at the world through the lens of averages, but through the lens of yourself.

What opportunities and challenges does this world provide you personally?

The truth is, for a man who has it together, there’s a ton of opportunity out there. In many ways, it’s a golden age.

Just consider the availability of knowledge. Think about all of the facts and insights that just I myself have provided in this newsletter. The information I’ve posted on attraction, on how relative attractiveness shifts as we age, and on the dynamics of online dating is knowledge people of my generation never had access to. We had no choice but to listen to official messages that sent out a lot of false information, including the equivalent of claiming that women are attracted to servant leaders (hint: not true).

Or think about the vast amount of information available about health and fitness. Yet, there’s a ton of conflicting info, and plenty of “misinformation and disinformation.” You really do have to “do the research.” But at least there’s actual availability of information, something you didn’t have back when the USDA’s food pyramid was telling you to load up on carbs.

Then there’s the products we can get, such as for actually eating healthy. When I grew up, we had delicious vegetables from our garden, but for the most part, everybody was forced to eat mass market, highly processed food because that was all that was available. The 1970s and 80s were a low point for consumption amenities. Today, farmers markets are everywhere. They are all sorts of options for buying fresh, healthy, ethically sourced food. Yes, it’s often expensive. But it’s available. When I was a kid, you couldn’t get a lot of this stuff no matter how much money you had.

Want to start a business? The barriers are lower than ever. Prior to the Internet, I would never have been able to get my message out unless a miracle occurred and some newspaper hired me as a columnist. Until five to ten years ago, making a living from online writing was essentially impossible.

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