I was looking through some old photos that a friend of mine had stored in a cardboard box. I don’t know where he got the photos from, but they were photos of my town from probably as far back as the 1940’s. Most of the pictures were of the downtown area and events the city put on such as parades.
I looked at the first few photos thinking to myself, “OK, a parade, big deal right?” But then as I continued flipping through the pictures I realized something about all of the people in those photos.
Everyone was smiling and looked happy, everyone was dressed classy, and the streets were flooded with more people than you even see out and about today.
I’m sure many of the people in the photos weren’t rich by any means. There were probably a good number of factory workers, guys who worked at the steel mill, and other men who worked physically demanding jobs.
I’m sure those photos also included white collar people like attorneys, doctors, and bankers as well. But the thing is, you’d never know the difference because everyone in the pictures was dressed up and took pride in their appearance.
There is a difference between being dirty and being dirty but neat at the same time. Dirty and neat means that you may not be clean but you wear clothes that fit and have your shirt tucked in and look as good as you can. You take as much pride in your appearance as possible.
When I saw these old photos I saw life in the people; I saw joy and happiness and purpose with the people in the photos. The people looked alive and just happy to be out and about. They didn’t look like people you see everyplace today who are depressed looking, lifeless and miserable.
I’m sure that a lot of the people in those photos had no real master plan in life. Maybe the master plan back then was to raise a family, enjoy going to a parade or a baseball game, and knowing that you did your best with what you had to work with.
Those old photos told a story. When I looked at them I wondered what their lives were like. When I looked at the photos of the parades and saw young boys walking tall in boy scout uniforms or helping to physically push a cart on wheels down the street I thought about how proud they must have felt.
What did those young boys aspire to be in life? What kind of men had an influence in their lives and who did they look up to? I wonder what they became in life. Maybe some went into the service and went to war, maybe some went from rags to riches, who knows what they became in life or if they’re even alive today.
When you look at some photos you see a story. I have older photos of me and my father and when I look at them they make me happy.
I don’t look at the photos and say “Wait a minute. The megapixels aren’t good enough. The angle isn’t good. The photo was never edited!”
Nah, I look at the photos and try my hardest to remember that time. Even if only a small part of my memory can grasp the past I try to put myself back into the picture mentally. That’s what photos are for, they’re to keep memories alive.
I recently went out and purchased a Polaroid camera with the instant film packs that process the pictures the way the old Polaroid cameras did. The camera has a memory card for loading your photos onto a computer but it also prints them right away.
The camera is 10 megapixels, a far cry from the new iPhones or digital cameras of recent years. That isn’t why I bought it though. I bought it because I wanted to take photos in real time that showed real life in my family.
Sometimes the best photos are the photos that are caught in the moment, not when someone has 20 redo’s to make the photo look as perfect as possible to impress people on Facebook or Instagram.
Time is valuable. It goes by fast and I wanted a photo album of my family, not just photos saved on a computer that could crash. There are no redo’s with my new camera; it’s going to take the photo and print the picture.
I don’t want redo’s anymore. I want the moments. The moment will always look perfect to you because it had meaning.
Building your life is a lot like looking through old photos. You enjoy the moments and you try your best to burn a mental image of those times in your mind. When you look back on those times through photos you realize that those times had more meaning than you thought at the time.
I think that is the meaning of life. The meaning of life to me is to burn as many mental images in my mind as possible and walk around with a smile on my face from living life the way I want to live it. All of the best photos of my childhood life I never saw $$$ signs in.
So what’s the purpose of life nowadays? Is the purpose of life to constantly acquire more useless shit or to actually enjoy the moments? Well, that really depends on who you ask. The sheep think that acquiring more and more shit will somehow yield them a state of happiness and control in life.
The ones who live for themselves and not everyone else understand that you can live as a minimalist and still have a very fulfilling life.
Whether your suit came from a consignment shop for $20 or whether you bought a brand new Hugo Boss suit for $1,000, men will act like men and carrying yourself highly will trump any $1,000 suit.
People are single now because they’re looking for something that just isn’t there. They’re also too distracted over meaningless bullshit to devote any real time and focus into what really matters in life.
It’s no longer cool to dress up and take your family to a parade anymore. I suppose sitting on the damn couch watching television all day means more now. Well, not to me!
Life is all about building memories and values. You may not have $100 for a steak dinner, but you can still dress nice and take your family to a more affordable place to eat, and you know what? They’ll look up to you! The right woman will stand by your side and support you, she’ll see the qualities you have.
One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in life was a couple who walked into a fast food restaurant with their son, all wearing party hats, dressed up, and carrying balloons that said “Happy Birthday.” The 3 of them had a birthday party for the young boy; they didn’t give a shit how it looked to anyone else.
I’m sure a lot of people would laugh at this and think the parents were dorky or too cheap to take the boy somewhere different, but I saw something beautiful that day. I saw people who were living in the moment and living for themselves and not what people thought of them.
I guess the point to this article is to live in the moment and create your own photos that tell a story. Maybe one day some stranger will look through them and wonder what it was in life that put a smile on your face that day.
People are too fucking worried about what they don’t have today to have fun anymore. Listen man, it doesn’t matter if you make big money or little money; you can always try your best and be a hero to someone. It’s all about how you carry yourself and where you place your values.
WHAT BUILDING YOUR BODY WILL DO FOR YOUR LIFE
A well built physique demands respect. I laugh when I see those old suits that came with the fake shoulders in them! “Here, let me put on this suit and try to make myself look more powerful with a set of shoulders that I’m too lazy to go get!”
The way you dress starts with the way you take care of yourself. If you want your kids to have confidence and not act like losers then YOU NEED TO HAVE CONFIDENCE AND NOT ACT LIKE A LOSER! That means that you need to be proud of and like what you see when you look in the mirror!
Trust me, when children see their parents carrying themselves well then they’ll naturally follow suit as they grow up. But act like a complete bum and that’s all your kids are going to see. Good luck!
I’ve never pushed my son into anything physical. I could care less whether he wanted to read books and design things on the computer or get involved with physically intense activities such as working out, hiking, rock climbing, riding his bike… whatever you could think of. But he naturally took to being physically active because he wasn’t exposed to living with slouches.
I live by the law of an object being in motion staying in motion and an object at rest staying at rest. Yes, it’s good to relax sometimes, but that’s all people do anymore is relax. They relax at work. They relax at home. They see no point in cooking meals or doing anything that used to be considered normal (grocery shopping, going to church or doing things together as a family).
I’m getting off my point here. Building your body will provide an example for your children to follow and it’ll command respect from everyone around you. Haters won’t like it because it’ll make them feel like shit, but they won’t be able to ignore it either! I learned a long time ago to take any negative talk towards my physique as a compliment.
Something about my presence was powerful enough to make someone talk about it and that’s proof right there that a good built body draws focus and attention from others. Some will appreciate it and know the type of work that goes into it, while others will knock it because they’ll never do it.
It really doesn’t matter though, because like I’ve said before in the past, I live in a world that I think is cool and one that I helped create for myself, and I don’t give a damn what normal people think!
I include my son and stepdaughter into my workouts quite often, actually. I just drag them along and they can either sit and watch or do something. They always end up doing something and if we go someplace such as the mountains to hike or the pool to swim…well they’re isn’t much choice but to be active!
And I see a difference in the way they act when they’re physically active. They feel better and act with confidence! Once confidence is established in life, half the battle of accomplishing the other missing elements has already been won. Something else confidence will do for you is to help you work and communicate with other people.
You see, people can sense positive and negative energy. Someone can be near me and they don’t even have to speak and I can sense whether their energy is good or bad. When you’re confident then you emit positive energy. Positive energy makes it more likely for someone to want to do business with you, return a phone call to you, or want to be in your company in any sort of a social setting.
Hey, where does this fall into play with most men? Dating! Act like a loser and she’ll chalk you up as one. But act with some confidence and assertiveness and you’ll have a much better chance of establishing a good relationship!
But here is the key; you cannot fake the funk! Sure, you might be able to fake your bullshit for a little while but eventually the truth comes out. Eventually people see right through you and know whether you have real confidence in life or if you’re just putting on a big show for everyone.
So you can begin to get confidence by developing a great body! Hey, maybe you don’t need to do this or have another approach and that’s fine, but for myself it all started with the workouts. The gym became the foundation for other things on my life to stem from, and once the groundwork was laid out then things became easier for me.
There is a big difference in being confident and being narcissistic. Narcissists think that everyone should be just like them, and confident people just don’t have the anxiety around people that others have. A confident person already has it in their minds that they have accepted themselves so it doesn’t matter who accepts them or not.
Self-acceptance is a major part of developing confidence. You need to learn that you are what you are. What working out and eating right did for me was it made me feel like a warrior. So I’ve accepted the fact that I’m a modern day warrior and I like feeling that way. If you feel like a wuss it’s because you’re acting like one.
Stop acting like one. The only steps to take are to start putting work into things and start having some balls! The areas that need work are going to be the areas you feel as though you’re falling short in. So if you’re a fat ass then maybe start walking more, if you’re bad at approaching women then approach more women, and if you dress like a scumbag then begin dressing nicer!
If you’re a dry guy then try to find humor in things, and if you can’t take enough serious then try to be more serious at times. You see, there’s a little secret I want to share here with you. That secret is how to determine your place in the wolf pack. See, you may not think you’re part of the animal kingdom but you are!
Do you know why women aren’t very funny to men? It’s because they’re not programmed to be funny to men. They’re not programmed to approach men either. Guess what you’re programmed to do? You are programmed as a man to display as many different traits to a woman as possible.
So everything from humor to confidence, to work ethic and a respectable physique will display more traits. The more traits you have and display, the further ahead in the wolf pack you get! So do you want to be last in the wolf pack or be the wolf up front who gets to eat first? It’s as simple as that my friends.
It sounds like building your body can start building other traits in your life doesn’t it? With muscles comes confidence, with confidence comes a better approach to people, a better approach means a better network with people, a better relationship with people means a more positive life.
So go out there and get a body and a life! Stop acting like a pansy and put in the work that needs to be done. Go out there and CREATE SOMETHING. Hell, start creating a lot of things!
“Some people are content with eating peanut butter and jelly for dinner, but I’d rather kill life and eat steak every night”
-JD
Awesome article. Beautiful perspective on life.
Outstanding article!
Really liked the reference to the old photographs of you and your father . . . made me think of my own dad and the last few pictures I have of us together. You couldn’t be more right about living in the moment. Most of us are so distracted by our agendas and schedules that we forget to enjoy and appreciate the “now” in our lives.
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