For masculine identifying folks, what were the things you did (or had happen to you) that you feel helped you transition into adulthood and find fulfilling community?
Statistics suggest that a large number of men feel isolated, unvalued by society, and dysfunctional, but it’s not 100%.
Perhaps the first thing was realizing that this is my life and it’s up to me how to live it – ‘society’ doesn’t get to put any demands on me, and my life will be what it will be. With that being said, I probably lucked out to have parents who gave me opportunities without imposing burdensome expectations, and studying philosophy helped me to not follow them down paths that I thought were misguided, even when they put some mild pressure on me. Books are always a good way to realize that you aren’t the only one with these doubts and ideas.
Second, is I have a decent job, which gives me some economic and social status. In some ways this was straight forward for me – I was always studious and there always seemed to be some sort of obvious opportunity ahead of me that I was ready to pursue. There were several times when I seriously doubted the path I was on and felt a lot of anxiety, but things worked out eventually.
I don’t have everything I want, and I see a lot of places I could improve in my time management and interpersonal interactions, but I feel pretty stable overall.