Late night ruminating on the left coast. Scrolling through the entries over at the Art of Manliness. You know ...right? I thought so.
I get a lot of emails from men asking questions like, “What should I major in in college?” “Should I go to medical school?” “Should I join the military?” They don’t know which path to take. I’d love to be able to tell them which way to go, but it’s not possible for me to know what would be best for these men. It’s good to seek advice and study out your options, but you eventually just have to jump in and see how it goes. It’s sort of a catch 22–you want to know what to do, but you can’t know what to do before you’ve ever done anything. You’ve got to fail and make mistakes in order to earn your practical wisdom.
For example–does it kind of suck that I had to go to three years of law school to become a blogger? Yes and no. I had to go through it in order to know what I really wanted to do, and it was not without its benefits. So what I try to tell men is this: don’t worry about whether or not it’s the right choice to join the military or major in X or whatever, because anything that gives you life experience will never be entirely bad, even if you decide it’s not something you want to do forever. Don’t be so afraid of making mistakes! Just get going and do something! Start heading down the path and give it your absolute all, and, if after doing that, you decide you need to change direction, that’s okay–as long as you learn from the experience, you’ve added to your store of practical wisdom. The next time you set course, your calculations with be more accurate in moving you towards your telos. The more decisions you make, the more practical wisdom you will gain, the better and better your choices will become and the closer and closer you’ll get to achieving true human flourishing
Oh, the ski boots?...best decision of my life. Practical Wisdom applied, one might say. Never had a bad time in the Hanson's. Ever....
