“What do you do?”, “What career do you have?” these questions are some of the first things asked when people are introduced to each other, especially men. The competitive nature of industrialized, individualistic culture in America has created an unobtainable standard of “success”. But what is success if you aren’t happy?
For men, their masculinity is almost exclusively their career. The breadwinner expectation has evolved into a constant climb to the top of the social hierarchy. This has led to 80-hour work weeks, high divorce rates, and high rates of male suicides. Men are now literally and metaphorically killing themselves to be better than the next guy all in order to be “successful”.
What if men flipped the script? What if the first thing people asked each other after being introduced was not “so, what do you do?” but rather “are you happy?”. In my opinion, that should be the measure of success. If a man can come home to either his family, or if he chooses to be single, and be truly happy, I believe that men’s mental health and relational health would be much healthier. If you are a man, I will leave you with this thought: Does being a successful man mean being successful on other’s terms or on your own?
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