Being a man isn’t about being the captain of the football team, or wrestling alligators, or evebbedding down  the prom queen. (although those things do help.) It’s about much more than accomplishments and more about the simple things that often get overlooked. Herein is a list that will explain from an everyman’s point of view what it takes to be a decent man in today’s day and age.

1.) Respect Women. This is not difficult and should also go without saying, but too often I will walk by a house on my way home from work to hear a man hollering at his wife about leaving the window down or not having his steak cooked just right. Wife, girlfriend/wife, mother, daughter, no matter. Afford her the respect she deserves. Mother gave you life. Girlfriend/wife gives you sex, food and children. Daughter will be changing your diapers about a generation after you were changing hers. All play important roles in your life whether you like to admit it or not. So open doors, pull out chairs, and say please and thank you. It’s the least you can do.

2.) Devote yourself to something other than work. Too much I see people absolutely consumed with their careers and forget about the things that they used to love. Maybe it just comes with the territory of growing up, maybe the working man thinks he can’t afford the time, whatever. Fallacy. You can’t be a happy person without doing something that makes you happy, its scientific science.  Maybe you’re a writer, maybe you like to hunt, maybe you play sports, maybe you climb shit. No matter. Trust me, someday you’re going to need an escape and you won’t have saved enough money or built enough vacation time to take that much needed holiday.

3.) Own a gun, or two. A 12 gauge shotgun as a bare minimum, and then a hunting rifle if it can be afforded. Know how to safely shoot them. Know how to hunt with them. Know how to clean them. And know how to clean what you’ve clean what you’ve hunted with them. Before there were slaughter houses there were men with guns who had to work for their food. It’s a comparatively primal method of getting by these days but still is something that a man should be able to do should the situation  warrant.  There is a lot to be said about a man who can provide for his family without the convenience of a supermarket.

4.) Run a mile, in under 8 minutes. I’m sorry, but if you take more than 8 minutes to run a mile, you have let yourself go. That is unless you are too young or too old. Trust me, 8 minutes is plenty of time and I know 300 lb. men that can do this. There are two different kinds of fat people, one to be respected much more than the other. Passive fat people, who wallow in self pity and complain that being fat isn’t their fault, and active fat people who may be overweight but are in good enough shape to get by with their daily lives without wheezing at the top of the staircase. 

5.) Drive a truck. Men drive trucks, not two-wheel drive Honda’s or Toyota’s. I am embarrassed for the men who own these vehicles. It is emasculating to say the least. What can you tow or haul with a hatchback? Who are you impressing with the fart-can on your Supra? That may have been cool back in high school, Johnny Tsunami, but not anymore. Don’t complain to me about gas mileage either. You can drive a four cylinder S-10 and get near the same mileage as any one of those VW bugs. And driving the super 10 you spare yourself some dignity along the way.  Trucks should be 4-wheel drive too. If you are only pushing two wheels, it may as well be a car.

6.) Have Faith. I’m not talking about going to church every Sunday and speaking in tongues and falling onto the floor in uncontrollable convulsions. Thats not for some people. However, there is something about having faith in something other than oneself that shows strength beyond measure. It takes guts for a man to admit that he is not in total control of his life. It takes even more guts to profess that the one and only way to heaven is through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Like I said, its not about going to church every Sunday, but having faith in the darkest times is like having a flashlight on a dark night. You don’t really need it but it will make things a hell of a lot easier.

7.) Be a friend. It doesn’t take a whole lot to be one and we all have them. Hang out together, drink together, go to sporting events together. Take his keys when he’s had too much to drink, and drag him out of the clutches of the swamp woman when she’s taking advantage of his BAC. He’ll return the favor. Friends are another necessity to being happy, whether they are an escape from the nagging girlfriend for the night or playing wingman at the bar.

This is a brief excerpt of a much longer list but these seven are the essentials to being a decent man. Among the rest of the items on the list are: reading a map, starting a fire without matches, traveling outside of your hometown, having a favorite team through thick and thin, driving a standard, being a wingman, quoting Arnold Schwarzenegger  from Terminator 2 and Will Ferrell from Anchorman, catching a fish that you clean and eat, participating on a sports team and not getting picked last, knowing the Pledge of Allegiance and believing every word, changing the oil in your own truck. The list goes on and may seem chauvinistic and offensive to some of the more sensitive people out there but real men aren‘t overly sensitive so if you take offense you were reading about the wrong topic. However, I am a man of my convictions and firmly believe that these are things that all men should be able to do. Please feel free to add to this list in the form of comments, maybe we can build a substantive list.