Marching to a Different Drum
When I was six, I started playing the drums. My grandmother’s friend, a drummer herself, saw me beating along in time to songs on the radio and gave me her old drum set. I can still see it clearly: a tiger print Slingerland five-piece. One cymbal. No high hat. No floor tom. But to me, it was a thing of beauty.
She taught me percussion, not by rote exercises and learning to read music, but by having me listen to a song and play along to it. I was in kindergarten, so I didn’t exactly have an extensive music collection. My little flip-top record player only had two 45s: Little Willy by Sweet, and Downtown by Petulia Clark. That Christmas, she gave me five albums to learn to play along with. The Osmond’s first album, The Osmond’s Phase III, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson 5, The Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits, and Jermaine Jackson. She believed, and I still believe, that Motown was the best way to learn.
I would run home from school and drum my little heart out to ABC and It’s You, Babe. I learned to listen for the beat and keep time with the band. In 4th grade, we could bring in records and play them during lunch period. One of the girls put on Puppy Love by Donny Osmond, and before I could think about what I was saying, I blurted out, “Oh yeah, Donny Osmond! I love this song!”
Crickets. Then a mass head-swivel of every boy in the class turned to stare at me, this naive, glasses-wearing, skinny kid.
They busted out laughing.
That was the moment I realized that boys were supposed to act like boys. That when they strayed from the script written for all young men—I love heavy metal, I want to be an Army Ranger, football is king, and oh yeah, I peeked at my dad’s Playboys—they were ostracized, cut from the pack like a limping gazelle. I stood there and stuttered and blushed, and wondered what was so wrong with knowing who Donny Osmond was, let alone liking him.
I put those albums away for an exceptionally long time. I started listening to Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and when that was not manly enough, I graduated to heavier music, pouring through Black Sabbath, and then Ted Nugent (God help me), before finally landing on KISS. I learned to talk about these songs and drum with them, and up my coolness factor as we all started sliding (pun intended) into puberty.
But I was holding one little secret to myself. When I got home from school, I put on the soundtracks to Grease, and Saturday Night Fever, and listened repeatedly to the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band soundtrack. I made fun of my sister for loving the Bay City Rollers but I have every one of their albums on my iPhone to this day.
Think about how crazy that is. My need to be a man drove me to be a closet music lover. Outwardly wearing Lynyrd Skynyrd and Angel t-shirts but singing “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y-NIGHT” in my head. I was keeping the best parts of myself hidden so that I could fit in with the rest of the world. Then I had a crazy thought.
What if other men felt the same way? That they have to love football and grilling because the world says so? What if there are other Donny Osmond fans burying their love under a stack of death metal LPs?
Okay, maybe most of you don’t love Donny Osmond, and that’s okay. Because here’s the truth—I don’t give a fuck what kind of music you like or whether you love football or if you love watching The Great British Baking Show. In my head, none of those things determines whether you are a man or not. So what does?
Apparently, a doctor. What’s the first thing that happens after a mother delivers a baby? The doctor clears the lungs, makes sure the baby is breathing, and then makes the royal proclamation:
It’s a Boy! Or, it’s a Girl!
Those three words determine everything from shower gifts to the color of the room. Blue for boys, with camouflage onesies and toy footballs. From the minute you draw a breath, those expectations are driven home.
Of course, there are individual norms for these roles, depending a lot on culture, parents, and environment, but we all have to agree that there are some pretty universal expectations put on men throughout their young lives.
Number one, and the one that kept me from crying in the lunchroom that day: Men are strong and powerful, and we never show weakness. To have a breakdown in the middle of tax season or get choked up when you watch It’s a Wonderful Life is not cool. Men have to be the pillar of the family, the rock. All the time.
No matter how much women say they want a sensitive man, who can appreciate and commiserate, in truth, they want that knight in shining armor. The protector, the provider, the guy who’s going to rush into the bathroom with a loafer drawn, ready to kill a spider. The guy who knows what to do when a hurricane comes or a zombie attacks or the stock market crashes. The guy with the answers, the fixes, the brawn, and most of all, mental fortitude.
I know I am generalizing and oversimplifying the whole topic, but the fact remains that 90% of the time, men are expected to be big, strong, and unflappable. Brené Brown confronted this stereotype during an interview with The Atlantic:
“Most women pledge allegiance to this idea that women can explore their emotions, break down, fall apart—and it’s healthy,” Brown said. “But guys are not allowed to fall apart.” Ironically, she explained, men are often pressured to open up and talk about their feelings, and they are criticized for being emotionally walled-off; but if they get too real, they are met with revulsion.
We are portrayed as being unable to control ourselves and our actions because we are ”men”. We can “grab women by the pussy” and laugh it off as “locker room talk” or “boys being boys” and not only is it accepted (and encouraged) by other men, it is accepted and supported by many (too many) women. AND get elected President.
We have all seen cases where women behaved in an assertive way or showed strength in the way they talked or acted, with a societal backlash that calls them “less likable” and many times, the women are shunned as unapproachable, coldhearted bullies. So, does this ridiculous reaction theory hold true for men? If we show vulnerability, empathy, expressive of sadness or modesty, or proclaim to be feminists, does it hurt us in the general view of the public?
You bet your ass it does.
Go on social media and post a comment that shows support for the downtrodden, the forgotten, or a feminist issue. Post about your feelings. Post something sappy and emotional. Go ahead. I dare you. No, I double-dog dare you.
What happens?
Inevitably the “snowflake” term is applied to you because you were weak and fragile in society’s view. Unless, of course, you comment in a backhanded way that is aggressive and attacks the other side with name-calling. Then it’s seen as a strength and “speaking your mind”.
All of this goes back to how we were raised, and the roles placed on us as we grew up. We are expected to stay in the boxes we checked when we were born, and never stray. Fit the mold, be the stereotype, and don’t be that one weird guy who does it all differently.
Except nothing about me is the same as every other guy in the room. And here’s another truth—nothing about you is the same as every other guy in the room. We don’t fit cardboard cutouts of men, and being forced to (or allowing fear to keep us there) means we bury a lot of ourselves. When you bury shit in yourself, it doesn’t stay buried. It oozes out in unhealthy ways. Drugs. Women. Alcohol. Risk-taking. Food. Whatever your self-poison of choice, you’re going to keep using it until you decide: “I am fine with myself just the way I am. Fuck what other people think or expect.”
We have created a culture of fake relationships, which creates fake people, and fake realities. I have a blog and a podcast, and I’m pretty open when I write or speak. Because of that openness, longtime readers and listeners tend to think they know me. On a much larger scale, celebrities have the same issue. People watch their movies, and TV shows, listen to their music and start thinking they have a personal relationship with Beyonce or George Clooney and know exactly how they feel about things.
They don’t. Anyone who is in the public eye is carefully crafting a persona—fitting the checklists of celebrity culture. They are stuck in societal boxes just like the rest of us.
Being in a fishbowl, everybody looking at every move you make, talking about everything you do” – it’s just a hard life to live.
Allen Iverson
I am an open book about how I feel about issues, and I share both my triumphs and failures (or setbacks) openly and without regard to how they might make me look to some. Most of the time this has been received well, but there have been a few occasions where some person I’ve never met or barely know, thinks it’s their job to bring me to task and call me out.
Reading a blog, or listening to me on a show, doesn’t mean you know my entire history or why I said something the way I said it. If my reaction to something seems out of line or unnecessarily intense it’s probably due to something inside me that I might not even be aware of.
So let’s cut each other a break, okay? Quit being such a judgmental ass.
Sometimes people think they know you. They know a few facts about you, and they piece you together in a way that makes sense to them. And if you don’t know yourself very well, you might even believe that they are right. But the truth is, that isn’t you. That isn’t you at all.
Leila Sales, This Song Will Save Your Life
Even though I’m a pretty self-aware person, I will stew about my reactions, trying to figure out the “why” behind what I said or did. If that reaction hurt someone’s feeling or confused a situation, I want to know why and how I can head that off next time (this is called being an adult, for those who missed that train station after puberty).
One day, I received an email from a long-time listener and reader who called me out for some things I said on my podcast after I had to quit training for my first Ironman. I went from not hot to too hot in a split second, ready to tell that reader where to stick their opinion.
Then I took a breath and decided to give it a day before I replied. The writer decided to lecture me about never finishing what I start, and asked me, ”How can you be a good coach if you can’t do the events yourself?” My first reaction was WTF, as was my second and okay, my third. This person doesn’t know me, even though they’ve been part of the group and podcast since the inception.
The letter writer looked at me as a thing, not a person. I’m a coach, and a man, so I’m supposed to fit that stereotype of suck-it-up-at-all-costs and don’t-be-a-quitter. Rah-rah. Get me a beer and a punching bag.
That, to put it delicately, is bullshit.
Those who judge and criticize see your life through their own lens. We need to stop and think before we react. What if their lenses are cloudy?
When I was on my bike, climbing a mountain, those people weren’t with me, they didn’t feel what I did, and they had no idea how much pain I was in—or how I agonized over quitting. Those people saw my life, colored by the historical precedent of their own, and didn’t know about the external elements of my life that shape the decisions I make.
“Perhaps they are intimidated by your evidently superior (wo)manliness and the only way they can find to assuage their flailing egos is to convince themselves you need their advice.”
When people sucker-punch us in the places where we’re sensitive, we lash out. We defend the castle, set fire to the moat, and launch a few arrows of our own. That’s a hell of a lot easier than self-reflection.
They stand behind their walls of This is How a Man Should Be and This is How a Coach Should Act, and throw judgment cannonballs. You can’t argue them out of that, because they are going to die on that hill rather than look internally.
When I was a kid, my stepfather abused me. He was sexually abusive to me between the ages of six and eight, and when that no longer worked to control me, he became physically abusive. The physical abuse was seen by family members, but I said nothing about the sexual abuse until I was seventeen. When I did say something about it, it was met by disbelief and the accusation that I was trying to undermine him to my mother. People told me to “get over it,” and “be a man,” because that’s what the script says.
Fuck that. Someone does something like that to you, and you do not just get over it. It’s the kind of thing that can determine and affect everything in your life—friendships, relationships, marriages.
A side note here: If someone messes with you when you’re a kid, it’s not your fault or your responsibility. Your abuser is the person responsible and being “male” does not lessen or excuse what was done to you. Be pissed off, speak up, and don’t take all that blame on your own shoulders.
With me, I have spent the majority of my life never having full trust in my heart for anyone (if you don’t trust them, they can’t hurt you, right? Note to self: that shit doesn’t work). I just knew that at some point the friend, lover, or wife, was going to reject me and hurt me. I was putting up the walls and slinging the arrows before the battle even started. Because I brought that energy into myself, all my worst fears came true. So I got harder, tougher, threw more arrows, and avoided reality even more.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I used it as an excuse to stop trying to get in shape. I retreated into a shell and allowed myself to go down a path of unhealthiness in both mind and body. I settled for relationships that were not rewarding but were comfortable. The spiral continued and grew stronger with each passing year until that fateful day when the scale read 303 pounds.
Then my mother died in 2020, and it hit me that I was fifty-six and now officially the oldest person in my family. And I was fat. Still. Unhealthy in both mind and body. I was seeking relationships that were not in my best interests. I was eating “healthy” but still gaining weight.
I had a choice. I could dig in, and keep throwing all my ammo over the castle walls, or I could get a grip and change the way I was thinking and acting.
Step outside the lines, admit I didn’t have my shit together and ask for help. I imagined the “man crowd” booing me for being so weak and unmanly.
Instead, I reached out and used my words to say, hey, I need some help. A friend of mine had tried a program in the past and had success, but I was hesitant. It featured packaged foods, at least in the beginning, and it also touted personal coaching and accountability. But I was at the end of my rope. I had just barnstormed through my closet and threw out everything that no longer fit because, as I was thinking then, I would never lose the weight. I was stuck at this weight. This was just who I was destined to be.
I could sit there in my well-armored persona of Fat Man with Cancer. Trust me, I was tempted because that was the path of least resistance, paved with Doritos. Or I could do something about it.
I agreed to talk to her coach. He explained the program, how it worked, the fact that this was a habit-forming approach, that the coaching was for the food aspect, but more importantly it was for the mental issues that come with building a new habit.
Mental issues? I could feel my armor building up, and my arm getting ready to launch an arrow. Instead, I took a breath and said okay. I decided to trust the coach.
I lost 8.6 pounds in the first week.
I went from 281 pounds to 210 pounds in six months.
The numbers were going in the right direction, but my head was slower to catch up to the changes. At the time, my job was my life. I got sick all the time, had headaches, and couldn’t sleep. I was surrounded by friends who were experts in arrow-slinging and negativity. Comfy, cozy, and safe from judgment and heartbreak.
I had to make myself the most important thing in my life. And if that sounds like an episode of Oprah, blame society. We all should be treating ourselves as the most important person in our lives. There’s nothing wrong with putting the oxygen mask on yourself first. It doesn’t make you a wimp or make you turn in your man card.
What does doing that look like? It looks a hell of a lot like making the decision to remove negative thoughts and negative people from your life. All of us carry dozens of “friends” on social media or in real life that we secretly don’t want to spend more than a minute with because they are masters at spewing hate and divisiveness. We keep them in our circle so we don’t look like “that guy”.
It looks like having an honest conversation with yourself and the people in your life. It looks like making choices to not have that beer or stay up late or eat the greens. It looks like saying, hey, I like drumming with Donny and I’m going to keep doing it.
Watch every action you make during the day and make it a habit to question everything you do and whether it’s helping you move toward that goal of being your best self or not. Is that 10 PM TV show you just MUST see more important than the extra hour of sleep you could get? Is the slice of cheesecake going to help you cross that finish in the time you envisioned?
You ARE what you DO.
Period.