I am an average guy, living an average life, struggling with the same everyday battles that most of you struggle with. I want to be a ” good man “, a ” real man ” a diference maker,successful,a strong leader, a faithful husband and father,a good friend , mentor, man of character and courage. Any of you have those same desires. It seems we have in this country a huge void when it comes to bestowing manhood upon our young men. No real right of passage to significantly usher in our transfer from boyhood to manhood. no real accountability in place to encourage and strengthen each other as men to reach for a standard of moral and strong character. We simply do what we want and with few exceptions do not press for better from ourselves or the men in our community. How sad.

This blog is to attempt to begin that conversation. How can we as men change the status of expectation for men in our society to build a culture of manhood that promotes a standard of moral character and high levels of conduct among us, as well as support and mentor those failing or even refusing to reach for those standards?

I am just a simple average man. I work with my hands for a living, repairing and installing water delivery systems. I have no magic wand to wave and make things better, I have no magic formula to enable your success at building character into your lives or the lives of others. I can only begin to talk about it, what has worked for me, how I have so very often failed and how that got better. you have a story as well, full of success and failures. Together maybe we can begin something that can grow beyond a blog into something powerful and effective in establidhing, promoting and protecting the culture of men in our comunity that makes us all better men. What do you think?

I can without any assistance come up with 100’s of reasons why this can not and will not work. Time spent on the negetive aspects to me, is a wast of breath, it changes nothing. Can we step beyond what we percive as hard or impossible to accomplish something great? That is the real question. Can we move beyond what separates us as men? All of it from color to religion to selfishness, pride, fear, whatever it may be and reconcile those things, relegate those things to something less important than our community of men?

Think about it….

Gary