Monday, February 24, 2014

Rise of the Un-MEN





By now I’m sure that nearly everyone has heard the statistics.  The ones that put numbers to the increasing failures of the male gender.  We are being outperformed by women on all fronts; education, profession, religion and being responsible adults.  What gives? 

I even read recently that the oft touted statistic that women earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn may not be all that true and that reality is that women soon will be earning as much as 8% more than men!

Boys are failing on an epic scale!

Up front let me state that I’m all in favor of equality and I hope I do not come across as slighting women in any way with what I’m going to say here.  The success that women are having is well earned and deserved, they have worked hard and sacrificed a lot to achieve it (men take note…this is the formula for success).

I also firmly believe that we play very specific gender roles for a reason and that it all part of a divine plan.

More and more it seems that men are opting to forgo the role of the breadwinner to stay home and let mom fulfill the divinely appointed role of protector, provider & presiding for their family.  Is it any wonder that men are reporting increases in reporting depression, anxiety and suicide?  When a man isn’t living up to his divine potential he cannot be satisfied and he cannot feel good about himself. 

On average men now spend more time in the bathroom grooming themselves than women do, spending nearly as much as women on cosmetic and beauty products.

Men today even produce less testosterone (the chemical that makes us men) and each generation declines even further.  Literally making us less and less manly with each passing generation. We are very LITERALLY becoming more feminine.

What really scares me:

But you know, none of these statistics scare me much…what really scares me is that so many men and boys don’t really seem to care. Apathy abounds and seems to be growing. In fact many seem happy at the prospect of having less responsibility and possibly being taken care of by a woman.  More and more men seem to WANT to avoid responsibility and refuse to stand up, man up and get ahead with life. 

Failure to launch syndrome has become the “I don’t even want to think about launching” syndrome!

Men are not failing, they are giving up and voluntarily making themselves extinct. They have become AFRAID to be men.

THIS IS CRAZY!  How did we come to this depraved state and what makes us think this is OK? Do we honestly think that a loving Father in Heaven put us here to fail? Do we think that we can ‘gain all that the father hath’ (D&C 84:38) if we aren’t willing to step up and be our best selves?

WE ARE MEN!  

We build things, we invent things, we make mistakes because we are willing to dive in, take risks and try things. We fix things, we get our hands dirty and we drive civilization forward! We work with our hands bending steel to our will and lead armies to defeat evil.  We stand between our homes and the screaming hordes of Satan…at least we used too.  Now we simply don’t care.

Uninspired, unmotivated, unworthy and unimpressive.  We’ve become the ‘UN-Men’…it’s like we are the exact opposite of superheroes.

What the Un-Men would look like if they had a comic book.


I look around me and I see grown men spending inordinate amounts of time playing video games.  I see young men staring into 4” phone screens while life happens all around them.  I see men expending loads of energy on pornography.  I see men who are incapable of hearing the promptings of the Holy Ghost because their ear buds are cranked up too loud.  I see boys in need of good examples to follow who’s fathers have checked out of family life and I see daughters craving the attention of their dads, and not getting anything.  I see women who wish their husbands would take a stand for righteousness but afraid to rock the boat and upset him and hurt his feelings.  I see men under the age of 40 who are not physically fit enough to join their sons and the Boy Scouts on a hike.  I see young men who are too obese to go on the same hikes.  I see priesthood leaders who are too timid to speak truth out of fear of being Politically Incorrect.  I see men who are not men.  I see lots and lots of UN-MEN.

1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Satan is waging war specifically on the men of the church and he’s doing it methodically through politics, media and technology.  Here is how:
In my minds eye, this is what it looks like to do combat with the forces of evil and stand for righteousness.


He offers us a wide variety of distractions to lure us into fake worlds and out of the real one (see Elder David A. Bednar’s Talk: Things As They Really Are).  He disconnects us from reality with more and more interesting fantasies.  He tells us it is OK because it’s just a game, a virtual world.  In the real world he convinces media producers, governments and others to punish manly behavior to demean it and to promote any possible way to tell men that they are oppressive, mean and useless.  His carefully coordinated attack successfully makes us want to retreat into fantasy even further.  He offers us pornography to distract us from real relationships with women that not only desensitizes us but devastates the real women in our lives. Then he tells us it is OK because it doesn’t hurt anyone (can he offer a bigger lie?).  He confuses sexuality with love and demeans marriage and family into a mere love contract.  He lies to us and says that we don’t have control over who we fall in love with and that when we are not longer in ‘lust’ we can simply discard marriage in favor of someone or something new.  As he gets us to spend more and more time with technology we lose connections to the physical world, we get fatter and fatter and our bodies cease to function in MANLY ways.  Men are designed to be physically powerful and active.  This reduction in fitness levels results in a decrease in the hormones that make us men. The ultimate conclusion to this plan is to make us so emasculated that we stop functioning, and slowly the priesthood will wither.  We cover this up with a pretended apathy and act like it’s no big deal when it really is.  No guy really wants to be a loser…but we are effectively filling that role more and more.

To top it off, Satan has the audacity to try and convince us that through all this, we are evolving into a higher life form!  WOW!! I’ve actually heard other ‘men’ make this argument! REALLY?!?  We put on his chains and tout that we are in fashion with the rest of the world!  We buy the lie and flaunt it about!

You see how he has lured us into removing the armor of God and is hitting us with so many fiery darts that we don’t even feel them anymore?  Is it any wonder that our boys don’t care? They are just following our example and taking it to the next logical step – total failure.

We all need to put a stop to it right now.

Go ahead…make my day.

Men it’s time to stand up! Arise from the dust! Shake off your chains and get engaged in life. 

Turn off the TV; the video game console, the phone and turn on life.  You will be astonished at what you can get done when you aren’t wasting hours with TV and video games. I become more and more convinced every day that video games are the worst use of time out there and they are destroying men and boys at an alarming rate.



Get in shape, loose that gut.  Learn some self control and eat healthy…then teach your kids the same. There are some great articles on this here and here.

Read your scriptures and start honoring your priesthood.  It starts with you dads if real change is going to happen.  Like the sons of Mosiah, your gospel teaching will have true power (Alma 17:2-3) and your righteous living will have an effect on those around you that will astound you!

Learn this word:NO”.  It is OK to say it to your child, in fact it will do them some good. They can’t have everything in life and they might as well learn early that sometimes life does not go your way.  SEVERELY limit the time they spend with media.  My wife teaches preschool and she is finding that she has to teach 4-year-old kids how to hold a crayon! More and more she is finding that they don’t have the finger strength to hold a pencil correctly…but they can launch Angry Birds with precision all day long.  Putting a pencil to paper has a proven effect on cognitive development and kids who can write and draw are at a significant advantage over those who cannot write well.

Think Manly Thoughts: read the war chapters of the Book of Mormon and ponder on what that means to you.  See yourself for the Spiritual Warrior you are in the eternal conflict between good and evil. 

Put away fear and take a hard look in the mirror, be honest with yourself and dare yourself to change. Repent where needed and keep moving forward!

2014 is the year to RISE UP, take up the sword of the spirit, follow the prophet and lets all march into battle and to VICTORY!  This is how we ARE the Latter Day Saint – Special Operations Forces of the Lord (LDS-SOF).  Here I will continue to post ideas of what we can do together, and I invite your feedback, ideas and sincere comments.



NO FEAR – NO WHINING – NO REGRETS

5 comments:

  1. This is so so true! Men really are becoming femine slowly and it needs to end! Just wanted to let you know im working on my mission papers and I cant wait to get my call in the next couple of week! This page has really helped me and I think your writings are really interesting and true. So thanks for taking the time to post them!

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  2. Cameron, CONGRATULATIONS! You will NEVER regret serving a mission. That is incredible. You and men like you are truly being priesthood warriors in the service of God. Thank you for the positive feedback.

    You are the reason that I share some of these ideas and thoughts.

    I'll keep putting them out there.

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    1. Just wanted to thank you for all of these post again! They really have helped me to realize that i need to serve a mission! I got my call to guatemala central mission! I leave august 20 and im speaking spanish. Just wanted to say thanks again!

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  3. Hey just wanted to let you know that i recieved my mission call to guatemala city guatemala central mission. I leave Aug 20 and i cant wait! Thanks for posting these thoughts they really have helped me!

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    1. THAT IS SO COOL!!! Like I've said you will never regret it!

      I served in Mexico City, and LOVED IT. The people of Central America are beautiful, inspirational, spiritual...it will be amazing. The additional plus is that many believe (including me) that Guatemala is the HEART of where the Book of Mormon took place. Now when you read about the prophecies about the "Gentiles" taking the gospel to the descendants of Lehi...you can know that you will personally be a part of fulfilling those prophecies!

      That is so awesome! I'm so excited for you!

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