Foundation:
Seek first the kingdom, and all these shall be added to you (Matthew 6:33). What is this like at the practical, daily level? I think one aspect is heart intent; consistently seeking, desiring, returning to, praying to the Lord. Another aspect is regular, substantial, and meaningful Christian fellowship. This will likely take effort, as would be implied by the phrase ‘seek first’. ‘Seek first’ implies some intentionality. We must intentionally engage in fellowship. This fellowship is a proving ground for your faith, presenting real challenges, but also, tangible blessings. You might move someplace for a job. Might you also move someplace for a church? Seeking first the kingdom, practically, means weighing calling and community heavily into your life choices.
Beliefs:
Break free from unnecessary, self-limiting beliefs. Paraphrasing something I once heard about approaching a potential mate: let her reject you, don’t do it for her. You might come up with reasons to preemptively disqualify yourself from an opportunity. Don’t. This could apply to any type of opportunity, not just romantic.
Decisions:
Be flexible, embrace opportunity. An opportunity might cross your path unexpectedly, and that opportunity might likely be a Divine appointment. You should have plans, dreams, and goals, but don’t be too rigid with those plans. Don’t miss a Divine appointment, because you’re too rigid or because you’re functioning in self-limiting beliefs, as mentioned above. You might be praying about life choice; either option ‘A’ or option ‘B’. Don’t get stuck thinking those are your only options. The Lord might have a completely different, and far better, option for you. Be flexible.
Mindset:
Make the most of seasons of your life. Your teenage and young adult years, before marital commitment and parenthood, is a time to go hard gaining career experience and education. You should try your limits and live a life that it is out of balance. Work too much. Invest in a side hustle so passionately that it becomes your main thing. Spend less time screwing off with entertainment and wasting your time in other ways. If you’re young and single, you have so much discretionary time. Do something that your future self can be proud of.
The Dopamine Drain:
Beware the dopamine drain, short-circuiting motivation. Do you have a vice, or does the vice have you? Porn, video games, and even excessive device use outside of those specific issues. I have two thoughts about this, mechanically:
1.) The dopamine drain sneaks up on people. You don’t realize how much time you’re actually spending on social media for example, and, you don’t know what it’s like when you’re not doing that. You’re the rat in the experiment, and if you’re in the experimental group, you don’t know what it’s like to be in the control group.
2.) I wonder if some people are uniquely predisposed to addiction to these activities; predisposed to these activities consuming them. Aside from predisposition, I believe that age of first use may also have a impact on this addiction.
I will say this about being dopamine drained, and maybe, testosterone deficient:
If a young man isn’t wanting and pursuing a driver’s license, job, car, girlfriend, and a place of his own, something is wrong.
Considering the dopamine drain, I mentioned porn. Maybe you should ask someone who successfully avoided this problem in their twenties. Can you find him? If you do, ask him.
If you have spiritual convictions, you already know porn is bad, and I don’t need to belabor that point. If it was a rational issue, you could hear the reasons why it is bad and simply make a decision to not partake. That’s not why we’re having this conversation. The big thing is that you need a life that is more compelling than the substance of abuse, and maybe even some real guardrails to keep you from accessing that substance of abuse.
Sexual ethic:
I will briefly address this topic in a similar way. You already know what you should and shouldn’t do. I think a good focal point for sexual morality is the biblical language of ‘the two becoming one flesh’ (Mark 10:7-8). While it’s true that you shouldn’t have sex outside of marriage, I believe a more compelling way to think about it is; sex IS marriage. I believe this is consistent with the Apostle Paul’s writings in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and surrounding verses.
Again, it is imperative to have a life, to be on a journey, that is more compelling than the substance of abuse, and to have guardrails to keep you out of situations. The way to fight this temptation was three steps back BEFORE you ended up at your apartment alone with your girlfriend. Does that comment sound legalistic? Maybe, but really, how committed are you to making this work?! Don’t rely on will or resolve. Instead, try to design a life that helps you not fail.
There is great hope in this concept of the two becoming one flesh. This is really something to wrestle with. Sexual desire is meant to be poured into a specific relationship with a specific person. It’s meant to be invested, not spent.
Ultimate despair:
It seems absurd that in the context of the most prosperous society in the history of the world, I would feel compelled to exhort young men to not kill themselves, but, I do feel compelled to address the problem of suicide. Clearly, the needs of a person are way more complex than simply being warm and well-fed.
I want to respect that there are numerous reasons why and how a person ends up contemplating this end, and I’m not even going to scratch the surface here. If you are in that situation, you know that the best solutions to your current problems were upstream from where you are now, and now, you are downstream. I’d have to know you better in order to have any idea what to say to talk you out of it, if possible. Ending it, though, makes nothing better, and likely, a number of things worse.’
Even if you’re not that person, you probably know people that are generally struggling in life. A related category is somebody who is struggling, and talks about suicide, but probably won’t follow through. Obviously, don’t just assume that, but sometimes it’s like that. Then, there’s this other category of people who outwardly have their life together, but one day, they end it, or attempt to. Their acquaintances say, ‘I had no idea.’
I feel that I’m speaking especially to men here. Do you have somebody that you can share your struggles with? Do you get angry sometimes and you don’t know why? Or depressed and you don’t know why? Maybe you’re strong enough to keep pressing the weight every day. But maybe you need to pause and ask what the weight is, and, if you need to keep lifting it, so that, one day, it doesn’t just crush you.
Submit to a Process:
Is your life working? If your life isn’t working maybe you should do it different. Perhaps that sounds flippant, but the reality is that certain patterns of thought and behavior helped get you here and I personally don’t believe you’re going think, or even pray, your way out of your current problem.
Submit to a process. This applies to someone who is farther along in adulthood, but struggling, and also it applies to someone younger who doesn’t know what they want to do (by the way, I think that the dopamine drain exacerbates this problem of not knowing what you want to do, but I digress). ‘Submit to a process’ means, pick something, like a job that is available to you, and commit to it for a time. For example, do it for a year, and then reassess; how is it going, what should I change, and is there another opportunity available to me now that I have made myself more valuable as an employee?
My point here is that, if your thinking hasn’t gotten you anywhere in life, you should probably take a break from your thinking and go do something for awhile. That’s what I mean by ‘submitting’ to a process; you actually have to let go of some things that you’ve been holding on to. Submit to a process, break a pattern.
Work out:
Get fit, or at least more fit than you are today. I know that most points I’ve been making here have been soul and psychology focused, and so is this one. Working out is a mental health issue, a confidence issue, a discipline issue, a masculinity issue. Become as able-bodied as you can be. If you’re fat, or skinny fat, fatigued, weak, and hunched-over, you’re not helping yourself or anyone else.
Cultural context:
So far this presentation has been individual focused, but what about factors outside of your direct control, like the greater economic and political scene? I believe this is a real concern for young men. For example, wages have not kept up with cost of living. It’s not just a personal responsibility issue, it is actually harder to get an adult life going now. One silver lining is that these conditions may necessitate stronger local, multi-generational, and church network connections. It would behoove a forward-looking young man to think about and to cultivate such networks.
What if it all fails? The same things that will make you succeed in a normal life scenario will also make you better in a societal collapse scenario. Are you physically resilient, mentally and spiritually resilient? Do you have resources and relationships?
If you are say, 18 years old, I implore you to consider your life at 30, maybe even 40. Do you realize that if you start in a skilled trade, for example, at 20, that by age 40 you will have 20 years of experience; enough expertise to be a top-paid employee, or to own the business, AND, to still have plenty of time in life to sell that business and pivot to something else?
Build something in your twenties so that you have something to offer your family at 30, and something to offer your community at 40.
Andrew K. Banks 