A man must be able to stand on his own
A man must be able to stand on his own. That’s what being a man is all about. Being able to go through life and stand on your own two feet without needing other people. Does this mean you should isolate yourself and not have contact with other people? No. I’m not promoting being a loner in the sense that you become anti-social. Being around other people and having great relationships will make your life much better than going without.
What standing on your own means
However, standing on your own means you don’t need anybody in particular. You can go through life on your own and be alone when needed.
Another way to describe this is that you aren’t needing other people’s validation.
Providing value to others, helping others, and being a part of a community is a great feeling. But even in this sense, you must be able to stand on your own. You can’t be needy for validation from others if you want to be a man and live authentically.
Most people can’t stand on their own. And it makes sense for certain people. But as a grown man, you need to be able to be good all by yourself. This applies to women, to friends, and even career wise. Yes, your life is better with people in it. But not the bad people. And many times even good people can be toxic for us if we dependent on them for validation. Your parents may want the best for you, but looking to them for validation as an adult will only lead to resentment. You may have vented for a good girlfriend, but there will be times when you need to hold a position in a relationship that makes things tough for you two.
Must be independent
A man who can stand on his own can push through the hard times in life or uncomfortable situations in order for things to be better in the long run. In the long run, his parents will forget that he disobeyed them when he’s successful. His girlfriend will see he meant what he said and will respect him more for sticking to his word, not for going back on what he said just to make her happy.
Standing on your own doesn’t mean that you burn bridges when you don’t need to. But it means you don’t live for the validation of others.
Validation
Why do people need validation from others? It seems like a silly thing. Who cares about what other people think? But if you take a step back, you realize that at some level you look for validation from others. If you don’t, then you’re already a man on your own path.
But most of us like validation at some level. It feels good to get validated. Even if it’s because you got a beautiful girlfriend, you feel goof about yourself if you haven’t dated a girl like that before. It adds to your confidence. Or if you got a job that’s a big upgrade from your last.
This is still validation, but it’s self validation. While it’s ideal not to care about this at all and be above everything like a deeply spiritual person, in the real world, high self validation leads to high confidence. As long as you’re careful not to overindulge, self validation can be useful. You validate yourself when you put in the work and get the results.
While you can become too obsessed with validating yourself, as long as you make it about progress and keep yourself in check, it’s not a terrible thing.
Validation from others
Most people are stuck not in self validation, however validation from others.
This is why most people are dependent on others. Beta men are looking from validation from women by getting sex. Women are looking for validation from men with attention and time. Employees are looking to bosses for validation. Kids look to parents for validation. And that’s where this starts off for most people.
A man needs to stand on his own, but a baby can’t.
Attention was critical for all of us as babies. Survival was based on our ability to get our parents attention so we could be fed and be saved from perceived threats. It makes sense why babies and even children want validation from parents.
However, as men we must outgrow this. For most of human history, there was a period in a man’s life when he had to take responsibility for himself and his family. This usually happened at the age of 12, 13, 14, etc, when the boy was going through puberty and now had to put down his childish ways.
No guidance
While some men today either had good fathers or learned on their own, many men haven’t had the guidance. They either had weak fathers in their lives or no fathers at all. Which has lead to many men in this childhish state of needing attention and validation. There are select men who don’t have a masculine role model and therefore become extremely masculine themselves. But most become extremely beta and take after the model of their mother, without having a masculine role model.
This leads to a lot of grown males who aren’t real men. They can’t stand on their own because they constantly need to be validated from other people. They have no masculine frame or strong presence about themselves.
Not being able to stand on your own has consequences
Your life is worse when you can’t stand on your own. Since you always need people to validate that you’re “good enough”, you deal with things like:
- Bad friends
- Low quality relationships with women
- Dependency on a job for money
Money
Financial freedom is when you control your own money and don’t need anyone individually for your resources. This usually means business ownership. But even if you have a job, you could stand on your own in a way if you have lots of savings, no debt, and have plenty of leverage to quit if need be.
Relationships with women
When you can stand on your own, you don’t need women. You still like to have a high quality girlfriend or other women in your life. But you aren’t dependent on any woman to validate yourself as a man. Therefore, you’re not going to deal with women who aren’t going to be exactly what you want.
Friendships
Bad friends are terrible for any man. Yet way too many guys will stay friends with other guys who do nothing for them. If you’re hanging around guys who always party, have no ambitions, you need new friends. Sure, you can grab a beer with your boys. But you need to have positive friends who want the best for you, just as you want the best for them. This is massively important and something that gets overlooked too often in a man’s life. It’s better to drop bad friends and not have any for a while then to have a social circle of people who hold you back.
I’ve had to let go of friends who only liked me when I partied with them and got mad when I was working. Even though this led to less friends for me in my present day, the friends I do have add way more value to my life and are working to progress themselves. That energy allows me to feed off their success, rise up myself, and then give that energy back to them.
But getting all of these things requires you to stand on your own first.
Standing on your own leads to authenticity
When you stand on your own as a man, you get respect from men and women. Since you don’t need other people, you can enjoy your own company. If a girl needs to reschedule a date or if your friends are busy this weekend, it’s all good. You can have a good time on your own. If you have a job you don’t like or you’re not being treated, you can speak up for yourself. Since you have a lot of money in the bank and have no debt, you’re not desperate in a financial set.
Standing on your own will allow you to be authentic.
You’ll be grounded in your truth and you can cut out or address bad situations. You’ll have better relationships with women in which you’ll be able to leave or address issues when they come up. The women you date will love you for actually being real with them and not letting them get away with treating you like how they treat the betas. Your friends will have more respect for you and look to you for your opinion.
Self respect
When you don’t need other people, you carry yourself in a different way. You walk differently, talk less and yet more powerfully with people. You move differently. It’s because you’re already validated in yourself. By getting up and being productive, working on your purpose, staying in the gym, and never being desperate for anyone’s attention, you’ll develop massive respect for yourself.
You’ll still enjoy other high quality people, but you won’t be needy for them.
This will allow you to be happy within yourself, not worry about what other people think, and value yourself more. When you become a man with self respect like this, you can be happy on your own. Which will lead to a higher quality of life for yourself and higher quality people in your life as well. Talk better to yourself, put in the work to give yourself a good life, and stop chasing validation from other people. Then you’ll be a man who can stand on his own.
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