Time Stamps

5/28/2016.

This date will forever be burned into my subconscious.

It was the day my new life began.

It was the day that my life officially changed and I was on my own, in my own house, the marriage a distant memory and the divorce, freshly finished not two months earlier.

I had just gone through the nightmare of selling my gigantic expensive house that my ex and I had bought, the 4 car garage, the pool, the separate wings for all the family and friends that didn’t ever come, the large basement we never used. The house that took all of my energy to move out of, fix up, and sell for a $50k loss, the house that was supposed to save our marriage, instead became one of the most expensive head stones in history.

The struggle was real.

For 4 dark months between December 2018 to March 2019, my life was a dark hole. I was depressed, broke, paying a gigantic mortgage for a house I was trying to sell, working on the said house getting it fixed up so I could lose my ass on it. All the while, I was packing up 4300 sq ft worth of shit I didn’t want. It all reminded me of my failed marriage, my life at that moment, I was convinced I had indeed let so many people down, including myself.

Two portable storage units stood coldly outside my house as I diligently, slowly, and deliberately, filled them up with my old stuff. I had to eat at my parent’s house a ton because I couldn’t really afford any food except Ramen noodles but I always saved enough to make sure my kids had full bellies. For some strange reason, women would come around, damaged women looking for a damaged guy like me, and while I entertained some of them, many of them only added to the misery of me, slowly trudging along trying to pack up my life for the hope of a new one. That hope was a fucking glimmer that I thought would only continue to dim.

My family wasn’t speaking to me, much. My mother and sister were angry at me for making the choice to “duck out” on a responsible marriage.

I was mindless at work, just going through the motions thinking about the misery awaiting me in the house I didn’t want, with the stuff I didn’t want, living the life I didn’t want, thinking I would be stuck in this monstrosity forever. So naturally, depression sunk in.

I was going to therapy once a week and it was helping. It really was the only light that kept this dark winter aglow. My therapist kept discussing that if I kept working, the time would come that I could look over the mountain and see my glorious future waiting for me. But with every hurdle, there would be 5 more.

My dog I had raised with my ex passed away from complications of diabetes in February of 2019 and I cursed myself that if I had not been in this situation, I could’ve saved his life. If I wasn’t so damn depressed, feeling sorry for myself, miserable, he would still be alive. I sat in the vet’s office looking down at the floor after I had carried my lifeless dog into the office, knowing that he was going to be dead the next morning. It added to the general feeling of just fucking grey.

Every part of that 10 years I spent married was either being removed, being thrown away, or dying in front of my eyes. It’s enough to grind a man to dust to see everything he worked for being lit on fire, but I knew I had to keep going.

I had a few friends, but my best friend Jack always came over to help when he could, and my older sister and brother helped me as well. But in this four-month period, it was a lonely time. With the occasional whore ringing my doorbell, I slept, ate, and worked day and night to try and get out of this hell I was in.

When you’re alone during and after a divorce, life tends to look pretty fucking bleak. You have no money, no life, the quality of people are lacking, the women are trash, and all you can do is watch the clock and hope that the things you talk about to yourself, the hope you give, the sun that shows up as the clouds part this purgatory you sit in, will all be just around the corner.

At least that’s what my therapist kept saying, as I sat staring at him in disbelief. Good things are coming? Bullshit.

He told me I needed to get my mind off of things. I was semi-active, going to the gym 3 times a week, but I hadn’t really done anything to challenge myself.

That’s when Spartan came up.

The Shift

I had done a Spartan in October of 2015. The easiest one, the sprint, was a 5-mile course of mud, muck, and obstacles in the Kentucky bluegrass.

I had done it, barely, but my therapist told me I should do more.

I told myself that I would do a Trifecta, which is all three races in a Spartan year. A sprint is 5 miles, a super is 10, and the beast is 15. So I joined a team and signed up.

How hard could a Spartan be?

And of course, the first Spartan was in May of 2016. It was the beast.

15 miles in Southwest Ohio. Mud, hills, trees, obstacles, getting around them all. I wasn’t going to run the damn thing. Hell, I could barely get up the stairs.

So I made a commitment and purchased P90X and started doing it every day.

I ended up losing about 30 lbs, but I was still chunkified and wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

And why the fuck was I even signing up for a Spartan race of this magnitude in the first place? I was divorced, broken, shattered and trying to build something from ashes.

The reason? Because I needed to prove to myself I could do something hard.

I had never, NEVER, challenged myself. My first hard challenge was breaking away and filing for divorce. And now it was personal. This was my new start. This was my goal to be the best man I can be.

As I was tearing down my old life, in the basement of my gigantic house, I was slowly building my new one. Every day, because I had nothing else to do, I went downstairs and did a workout. I started to get stronger. I knew this was the first step every man must take to reclaim their lives.

I knew something amazing was going to happen.

So on that day, I got with my team and started the 15 mile trek. Hauling logs, carrying boulders, climbing hills, scaling walls, then halfway through, I lost my team.

Spartan Beast – Ohio 2016

It was just me and the course. Rain was coming down hard as I slogged through the mud. I was by myself, on a 15 mile course, easily the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I had a half bottle of mustard, an energy bar, and my water pack.

I was terrified, I’ll be honest. Every hill I climbed, my legs cramped something horrible. I kept eating the mustard and kept going. There were other people around me, alone, overweight, fighting for every step, and we talked as we worked up this course. I would talk to strangers, other folks trying to do something amazing by finishing this course, jumping the fire, and getting their medals. I had that in mind too, as well as catching up with my team, but also, it became about proving something to myself. Proving that I could finish this course on my own. Proving that I could tackle the obstacles. Others quit around me. A 68-year-old man who was with me for most of my time and I talked. He’d been doing Spartans for years, and while he was slow, he did them, and he did them well. We worked over several obstacles together as we talked.

As I neared the last 2 miles, I was climbing a mud hill when I saw my team, waiting for me. It was almost dark. I wanted to get to the finish before the sunset. So I summoned what strength I had left, did the last few obstacles, and made the finish line by jumping over the fire. I was ecstatic.

I had done it. I had conquered a course. And it showed me what this second chance in my life really was about. Getting over the hard parts to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.

But the Beast was also a microcosm of my own struggles in my life. That course took me 8 hours to get through. My life, currently, was a trudge that I knew I was going to get through, I just had to do it.

And suddenly, after the Spartan, the world seemed much easier to deal with. The small shit I was bitching about in my life became shit that I checked off of the list. I finished my house up, and after a few last minute panic moments, got it sold.

With it getting sold, I was able to move into my new house, my new life.

The last shackles of my married life were in that gigantic house, and now, without it, my world seems much more promising.

Then came the 28th. I came into work with a smile on my face. I had closed on my old house and was ready to move into my new house. As I left work that afternoon, I went to my new house, my new life, and stood in front of it.

This was a new start for me. A second chance to live my life MY way. A promise that I had made to myself that I was keeping. I stood in front of my new house beaming. Regardless of what happened from this point on, this was now on my terms. This life was now mine. I owned it, finally.

That night, I pulled out my bed, assembled it, and got to sleep in an empty house. But it was the greatest night’s sleep I ever got. Because deep down, I knew that my nightmare 6 months was now over.

I could breathe again. And I could finally live.

This is why 5/28 will forever be the number one date in my life.

Because I finally got to be me.

This is now my life, on my terms.

And I’m never looking back.

Intent to Silence

Photo Credit: medium.com

When you are in my line of blogging, writing, Youtubing, and podcasting, you tend to get a lot of flak from those that disagree with you. I am proud to say feminists don’t like me very much, because until 4 years ago, I didn’t have my head on straight on what I truly believed about the feminism movement and femininity in general.

But as I’ve evolved into this man you see today, still learning, still writing, working on a book, launched a new show on Youtube, and working on my podcast again, my views have always been called “misogynistic” by many feminists. Read my stuff. I’m critical of women, liberals and feminists in particular, but my views on women are generally that I love them and that feminism is a false god that has led them from looking for equality (which is just) to looking for revenge and power (which is happening).

While we disagree on many things, I still have every right to write what I think with discourse and debate welcome and insults and shaming being blockable offenses.

Listen, just because I paint certain segments of the female population in a negative light doesn’t mean I’m misogynistic. Everyone is ripe for criticism, me included. I stand by my writings as what I believe and if you don’t like it, there’s the door.

However, modern feminism is more interested in silencing those that disagree with them than openly debating ideas and issues. It’s not enough to agree to disagree, tip your cap, and move on your merry way. No, this person is wrong and they have to be made an example of.

No where is this more visible than with what happened with Jack Murphy.

Go to his Twitter page and read his pinned tweet. It will terrify you.

When the mob comes for you, it comes for you good and hard. You’ll lose family, friends, jobs, and relationships because you dared to write something you believe, much less something that is controversial.

But there will be no debate. The mob speaks and it speaks quickly and with brutal effectiveness. If you are seen as a person who’s views are “questionable”, be assured they will come for you.

That continues to be the problem today and will be the problem for the foreseeable future.

And this has come full circle with a little stunt an unknown woman pulled with me in a personal Facebook group.

Be Quiet or Be Ruined

When you are on this side of the debate, many, many men are changing names, choosing anonymity for having the temerity to express their opinions that may go against the grain. It is a constant worry, that actually expressing your views will get you fired from your job, removed from any activities, losing family and friends because you have an opinion that isn’t necessarily popular.

Look at Jack Murphy, Brett Kavanaugh, and the hundreds of other men who’s lives have been ruined because of false accusations and speaking for what they believe in. You never know when you might piss off the wrong people for saying what you think, resulting in your boss getting wind of your social media, and then the pitchforks and torches come out big time.

On another innocuous Monday night, I had recently tagged a bunch of my female mother friends in a Facebook post wishing them all a Happy Mother’s Day. I do this every year, as I recognize the importance of mothers to all of our lives and it was done again this year with little regard to what Pandora’s box I had just opened.

As I sat with my daughter doing homework, I got a notification with an unknown woman who had posted in my tagged group post with a link to my blog post about “The Single Mom Dating Dilemma”, which was a post in which I discuss my dating situation and try to debunk the manosphere issues with many single mothers, while pointing out that some of what is said is the truth. But the bottom line of that who article is women who take responsibility for bad choices in their lives (hell, ANYONE who does) tend to make better dating prospects because they own their lives, no questions asked. And I lavish praise on those women, with several women I’ve dated and countless family members who I admire and respect as strong, independent women who have succeeded in their lives. And yes, I do discuss my general disdain for the feminism movement that wants to “empower” women by trashing men and as usual, I call out my normal boogeymen of victimhood mentality, lack of personal responsibility, and the entitlement ruse that modern feminism uses as its “modus operandi.”

As always, this is where my blog focuses on. It’s nothing new to my 10k plus subs, but as it hits new audiences, it’s going to be challenged. And I welcome open debate on my conversations…but as we know, many toxic feminists aren’t interested in debate. They’d rather attempt to “expose” you and shame you into silence. And that’s just what happened.

So there it was, let’s call this woman….hmmmm, “Karen”. A woman I didn’t know, but a woman who was friends with a past acquaintance of mine I had dated briefly whom I happened to have tagged in the post because she’s a good mom. We disagreed on politics (she absolutely hates Trump) and left it at that. She ghosted me but we still were friends on Facebook.

So, Karen had a pithy comment saying that how I “really” feel about moms was in my blog post, especially single moms, in an attempt to shame me in front of my closest female friends and family. She then linked my blog post “The American Woman”, describing the total dumpster fire of Tinder and where many modern American liberal women have been lied to and lost their way. None of this is particularly salacious, I’m merely stating what I believe with the sense of entitlement that many women (and men for that matter) have developed with the “participation trophy” society I so desperately want to get away from.

What the hell was she trying to do?

Well, she was trying to shame me into silence. By “sticking it to the man” by posting my blog posts (which a majority of my friends and family know about, and either agree or disagree with) she was trying to “expose” me to my friends and family as a “misogynist” for posting such “horrible” things about women. I’m merely reporting what I believe and what I see, which is holding women accountable for their actions as well as men.

After my back and forth banter with “Karen”, a friend of mine recommended I block her, which I did, after many confused messages about what was going on. Karen had took it upon herself to enact justice on behalf of all women everywhere by trying to put the “toxic” male in his place because he happened to have a different opinion that she did.

Once again, modern femininity isn’t concerned about healthy discourse as it is with trying to silence and shame those who disagree with it. And once again, it shows the need for everyone to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of what people might think.

And that’s exactly what “Karen” was after here. Shame me in front of women whom just a day earlier I had wished a happy Mother’s day (including my own mother and sister) in order to show all the women of my life what a horrible man I was because I choose to voice my opinion which isn’t in lock step with what modern feminism deems appropriate.

So, for the people that don’t know what I do, here’s your introduction to my opinion. Take it or leave it, but be better and agree to disagree, rather than try to destroy or silence someone you disagree with. With the advent of social media, people have HAD to go anonymous because they believe certain things and are shamed, shunned, and destroyed by those who have an ax to grind against them.

Trying to silence those who you disagree with only does one thing. It makes them come back stronger and more polarized that if you had tried to discuss your side of things in an constructive manner. But everyone wants to be an outrage broker.

This has only polarized us further. And as with other hot button topics like feminism (fat acceptance, toxic masculinity, politics) the more controversial, the more eggshells and the more sitting on your hands. You have every right to disagree with me, as do I with you, but can we do it respectfully and openly, instead of treating every opinion like a lit stick of dynamite that will blow families, friends, and societies apart because we can’t have the difficult conversations that need to be had.

Bottom Lines

Do I come across as rough and direct? Sure, but that’s my right. We don’t live in China (yet) but we are starting to trend that way.

I respect your opinion even if I disagree with it. I believe you should do the same. I should never have to apologize for my convictions and beliefs just because they rub you the wrong way. And I should never have to pay for my opinion with my job, my life, my kids, or my freedom because I said something you don’t like. Last time I checked, this was still America.

So here you go. Here is what I believe:

  • I voted for Donald Trump and I will again
  • I am a conservative and I believe in small government
  • I disagree with Trump on many things, mainly his Twitter foolishness
  • I believe all mainstream media from FOX to CBS has been corrupted with FAKE news
  • I believe that obesity is a national epidemic and we all need to get into shape for our best lives
  • I believe in equality of both sexes, but that each sex brings strengths to a relationship
  • I believe in two genders
  • I believe and support gay marriage
  • I believe that taxation is theft
  • I believe that modern feminism is damaging women and it is trying to change men
  • I decry the term “Toxic Masculinity”
  • I support public schools but they need to teach without an agenda
  • I don’t go to church and I am agnostic, but I respect all religions and your beliefs as long as you respect mine
  • Religion and I don’t necessarily get along, it has the same trappings as government as a form of absolute worship versus an open mind
  • I believe masculinity and femininity are both amazing things that people should respect and nurture, versus trying to change
  • I don’t drink anymore, but I respect your right to do so
  • I believe a strong father is required to have well rounded kids
  • I don’t believe in entitlement, but I do believe that everyone needs help and has dark times they need to get through
  • Systematic racism still exists, as does white privilege
  • I absolutely love women and all they are
  • I believe biology trumps everything else

So, all I ask is that you respect my opinion. I am still learning every day and my opinions often change, and I am always up for hearing a side of something I didn’t hear. But EVERYONE must bring the respect. If you don’t respect me, I highly doubt I will respect you back.

I have every right to my opinions and shouldn’t have to cower because it doesn’t fit with the “Right think” narrative that many men who’ve had their lives destroyed are still fighting to this day.

If I lose followers, friends, or family by writing this, so be it. It gets tiresome to try and dance around feelings, all while trying to keep the peace because of intolerance of opinion. And I’m sure I will be pigeon-holed as a misogynist, right wing whack job, etc, but that’s on you. You’re labeling me in the same way you shame others for labeling you.

There it is. This is me.

Take it or leave it, but I’m not going to let my opinions be silenced because you don’t agree with them.

I won’t be bullied.