Why “I know” is the only line you’ll ever need.
[653 words]
The hardest thing for a man to achieve isn’t masculine independence, idealistic performance, or that almighty yet seemingly mythical lifestyle of zero fucks given.
These things are indeed valuable and worthy endeavors for most men. Not to mention they’re a shitload of fun to have obtained and exercised on a daily basis.
But none require anywhere the same amount of holy brass ball confidence as the ability to ask your closest friends, family, and even newfound acquaintances three simple questions we all but bury underneath our battle worn, self-evident alphaness:
- What do you like about me?
- What do you not like about me?
- And why?
Okay. I already know what you’re thinking. Asking these questions shouldn’t matter at all.
And you’re right.
Partially right.
No man can live his own life being restricted to the verbal opinions of anyone and everyone he openly solicits. Right or wrong, you eventually have to prioritize your own core beliefs over others.
I’ll agree.
However, the reason why these three simple questions define your real strength is not because of the alleged truth of their inevitable responses but because they force you to now hear the one thing you’ve likely been avoiding your entire life:
Someone else’s honest to God opinion of you.
Again, right or wrong, caring about their words is the only thing really stopping you from achieving your independence, performance, and willingness to not give a single fuck. You can’t have the latter without overcoming the former.
And again, I’ll be the first to agree there reaches a point of critical mass in every successful man’s life when he stops caring so much about what everyone else thinks of him and instead moves forward based solely on his—and not everyone else’s—mental point of origin.
The problem, though, is when people cheat themselves by never actually knowing the exact opinions they supposedly “don’t care” about.
By that, I mean it’s absurd for them to take pride in believing they “don’t care” about everyone’s opinion when they don’t even ask what that opinion is.
What if, upon hearing all those meaningless opinions, they did in fact realize one, or more, to be painfully true? That they did in fact “care” about them?
These men aren’t only apathetic about confrontation, criticism, and opposition.
They conveniently avoid it too.
So why don’t they ask?
Because for them, it’s fucking easy to assume everyone else’s opinion doesn’t matter and probably isn’t even “accurate” if they told them.
And it’s a whole lot fucking easier to oh-so-confidently presume they’re God’s gift to man rather than do something tangible to prove it true.
Deep down, they’re afraid of the possibility of hearing a bitter truth that’s long been compartmentalized out of their peacefully engineered lives.
By never giving anyone the chance to call them out on their own bullshit, they dodge any and all potential judgement from sources outside their own control.
Which to you, me, and everyone else, is otherwise known as the real world.
So they believe they’re not giving a fuck, but in reality they’re giving the most obvious and worst kind of fuck out there:
The fuck about not giving a fuck.
I know, this has been a lot of fucks. But if you’ve been reading closely, sometimes you have to openly admit to yourself that giving a few well placed fucks here and there is the only logical way to stop giving them altogether.
You may have heard knowing is half the battle. And I’m sure all the wiser follow this strategy.
But what do you call a man who never wants to know yet always wants to win? What do you call a man who rigs the game from the start by never allowing himself an opportunity to face defeat?
I know what they call men like that.
And maybe—sometimes more often than not—when you look in the mirror, you probably know too:
a coward
