Written in April 2002 for Human Growth and Development
Pensacola Junior College
It has been said that the gateway to a man�s soul is grief. This is so poignantly true because of the male attitude toward grief and the expression of it. Men have always been told to stifle their feelings of loss, to smother their longings for a thing that once was and will never be again�or perhaps for a thing that never had the chance to be.
The most significant form of grief in our daily lives is the death of a loved one. This, truly, is the only grief we as men allow ourselves to experience. This loss, however, is no more painful than the many other losses we experience throughout our lives. Death comes in many forms other than corporeal. In some small way, every day is a series of losses and victories�a countless and constant deluge of paths not taken and choices not made. While most of these decisions are insignificant on the larger scale, some alter our destinies for the rest of our lives.
We have all faced these difficult decisions. Should we remain in our current job, or take a riskier, yet possibly more lucrative, position? Do we take our relationship with that someone special to the next level, or hold out a while longer? In times of both personal crisis and quiet reflection, it is easy to find ourselves drifting back to the assignment we didn�t take, or the girl that got away. The stirring in our souls, and the grief that pervades our minds, are real emotions. We should be permitted to explore these feelings that we have, and reconcile our unease to a comfortable conclusion. Yet we hold back our feelings. We refuse to get in touch with our own grief, because of the teachings that have been drilled into us throughout our developmental years. Boys don�t cry.
From an early age, we are taught to hold our feelings back. The male mode of thinking is a direct one. We see the things that we want, we lay out a plan, and we get the things that we want. If things come between our plan, and us, we have to circumvent them. We are taught to focus on our strengths and downplay our weaknesses, when it is in fact our weaknesses that form a large part of who we are. Man cannot be judged by his success alone, and often one can learn more about a man from his failures. Yet these failures are to be overlooked and swept under the rug. We are meant to walk past them like so much dung on the sidewalk. In doing so, we lose the rare insight that comes with mourning the loss that these failures caused.
The goal for which we endeavor often ultimately betrays us. Many a man has reached his target�be it a corporate position in a large firm or a Nobel Prize�and realized that he lacked the happiness that he always imagined would come along with that grand success. The reason that reality often falls short of our dreams is because, as men, we are taught to phrase what we want, but not what we desire. Often, these men who hold such substantial power, yet feel so empty within their souls, are victims of their own minds. They verbalized throughout their lives the things that they wanted, but they never found a way to tell others, or even themselves, the things that they desired. The difference between the two lies in the fundamental aspects of our development and our personality. John Smith may very well have the success that his father had, but did he strive so hard for that success that he forgot along the way about the other important factors, like a wife and family, that made his father so happy and his childhood so full of fond memories?
Perhaps John�s childhood memories aren�t fond at all. Instead, let us imagine John�s upbringing to be unstable and full of conflict. John�s father may have left home, abandoning John and his mother, when John was very young.
Throughout his childhood, John watched as his mother�s heart was broken by an assortment of men. Marriages came and went, but nothing was ever permanent. When John became an adult, he longed for the life that he was denied as a child, but he had been conditioned to be afraid of any commitment that would hurt him the way his mother had been hurt.
At the center of all of this internal conflict is John�s father�the man who vanished from John�s life and set in motion the chain of events that made John the man that he is now. The anger and resentment that John felt toward his father has slowly given way to an unconscious desire to find him, to forgive him. In this forgiveness, perhaps John can find some contentment. To reach this reconciliation, John must explore his feelings of hatred, resentment, anger, and the deeply rooted self-blame inherent in so many children of divorce. It is a long and arduous path, and society dictates that John walk it alone.
The grief that John must experience and work through is typical of many men today. We brood over the loss of relationships, family, and youth. We mourn the passing of each phase of our lives, watching the pages fall from the calendar like autumn leaves. We grieve in silence�yet our silence speaks volumes.
Write a review of this essay
Back to Essays, etc.
Back to Home Page
