Whole Man

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings. Theodore Roosevelt There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. Hindu Proverb You have one life. One shot. The average life span of an Australian male is 75. At the time of writing this book I am 47 years old. Statistically my life on earth is already half over. I don’t want to just SURVIVE in life. I want to THRIVE! I want to use all the gifts I have been given to reach my full potential. I want to be able to love myself and others unconditionally. Rather than using all my energy to just get through each day, I want to excel and reach greater and higher places. It was for these reasons you were created. Your destiny is to live life happy and fulfilled as a man. I have written this book to help other men. To help them see that manhood is a gift to our world. It is exciting, fulfilling and unique. It is life-giving. In an article written by Adele Horin for The Melbourne Age newspaper (July 10, 2002), the author refers to a study undertaken by Deakin University in Melbourne, which shows that on the happiness scale Australian men fall significantly below women regardless of their state in life i.e. single, married, have children or not. Why? Hopefully, as we journey together for a while in these pages, you will find some answers to this question. Men need to embrace fully their manhood to live happy fulfilled lives. Our world needs men that are complete. Men need men who are complete. Stand in front of a mirror. Look at yourself. Be honest and describe what you see and how you feel about this person staring back at you. You may wish to write these feelings down. Your relationship with this person is the most important human relationship you will ever have. From this relationship stems all others. If you don’t like yourself you will find it difficult to like other people. If you hate your self you will tend to hate other people. If you judge yourself you will be judgmental of others. If you don’t love and accept yourself unconditionally, then in your heart you will believe in a spiritual source, or God, that doesn’t love or accept you unconditionally either. If, however, you love yourself and accept yourself as you are, your capacity to love and accept others will be great. As Theodore Roosevelt points out in the quote above, your purpose on earth isn’t to live a perfect or mistake-free life; it is to keep growing towards wholeness and the only way to do that is to embrace life in the ‘arena’. Yes, you will get your hands and face dirty from time to time. Yes, you will be criticized by others who think they understand you, or your situation, better than you do. But in the long run, these things aren’t important. It’s how you respond to them that matters. These seemingly negative things may actually contain within them the seeds of new and exciting growth. Remember, pruning a plant is essential to maximize its production of flowers or fruit. Otherwise most of its energy goes into the stems and leaves. The purpose of the plant ultimately though, is to produce flowers or fruit. In this book we are going to explore what being a whole man is, and what the implications are for a man living as a whole person. As you read, reflect and act upon ideas and suggestions in this book, keep an open mind and embrace the possibility of change. Some things in this book may move you out of your comfort zone, but remember, always staying within the confines of that comfort zone is not the primary reason you are here. You are on earth to grow towards personal wholeness, assist others in doing so, and in the process to realize your full potential. This book is written for men who desire to actively live as a whole person. Some will have already embarked on that journey towards wholeness, whereas others may have that intention but not know where to begin. If you fit in either category then this book is for you. It is written in simple, straight-forward language and is designed to practically assist you to move further along the road to wholeness. Living as a whole man implies reaching and maintaining balance both within ourselves and externally in our interactions with others and the environment. There is some repetition in this book which is unavoidable because different aspects that go together to make the whole person overlap each other to some degree. There are no absolute lines of delineation between them. Upon re-reading the text, I came to the conclusion that the small amount of repetition actually serves to reinforce important, central themes. One such example is living in the present moment which is referred to in more than one place in this book. At numerous places throughout this text I refer to our spiritual source. For the sake of simplicity I refer to this source as God but you may substitute this term for another to align more accurately with your beliefs if you so wish. The two terms, dis-ease (hyphenated) and disease (not hyphenated) are used in this book. Dis-ease is a general term which refers to the fact that the normal ‘ease’, or state of balance, in the whole person has been disrupted. This is distinct from the term disease, which applies to a specific ailment. Dis-ease in an individual will always precede disease. In other words, an inner imbalance (dis-ease) gives rise to an outward expression (disease) of this imbalance. This book is by no means an exhaustive study of the whole person. It is intended more as a guide for those men who read it, to stimulate further reading and action. To this end, there is, at the end of each Chapter in Part 1: - an Ideas section which gives practical suggestions for the reader to apply the theory discussed in that Chapter. - a Resources list for accessing media material for further investigation and learning It is my hope that this book will stimulate those men who read it, to view themselves and how they interact with their world, from a place of higher conscious awareness.