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The Child Is the Father to the
Man: 9 Foundational Habits
Young Men Should Start Now to
Raise Themselves Rightby Brett & Kate McKay on September 16, 2013 53 comments
inA Man's Life
Awhile back I was driving through the place where I grew up
Edmond, Oklahomaand happened to pass by my old high school.This wasnt an unusual event; I now live just an hour and a half from
Edmond and my parents still reside there, so Im back fairly frequently
and sometimes pass the school. But this time something was different.
On past occasions, I would be hit with a rush of nostalgia and memories
of my days there would vividly come back to me. This time, however, I
feltnothing. Cognitively I thought, Theres my old high school, but
no emotional wires were tripped. It seemed like just another building
my feeling of strong personal connection to it had disappeared.
As I drove on and contemplated this change and the distance I realized I
now felt towards my youth in general, a quote from Theodore
Roosevelt I had read years earlier came back to me: The child is fatherto the man. When I first came across the quote, it had puzzled me. I
couldnt really grasp what it meant. But as I drove past the home of the
Edmond North Huskies, I began to understand it.
Roosevelt, I learned, was not the originator of the quotehe was in fact
referencing a poem by William Wordsworth:
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
What Wordsworth had in mind with these lines is the idea that a mans
passions, interests, curiosity, and penchant for awe and wonderment are
born in youth and run an unsevered thread into adulthood. While some
adults forgot the childlike joy of their younger years, Wordsworth
believed it was still within them waiting to be rediscovered.
This is a worthy idea, and one that few men embraced with the vigor of
Theodore Roosevelt, who bounded through his entire life with an
unflagging boyish enthusiasm. But when TR professed that the child is
the father of the man, he had something much different in mind, as he
writes in his autobiography:
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Looking back, a man really has a more objective feeling about himself
as a child than he has about his father or mother. He feels as if that
child were not the present he, individually, but an ancestor; just as
much an ancestor as either of his parents. The saying that the child is
the father to the man may be taken in a sense almost the reverse of that
usually given to it. The child is father to the man in the sense that his
individuality is separate from the individuality of the grown-up into
which he turns. This is perhaps one reason why a man can speak of hischildhood and early youth with a sense of detachment.
At a certain point in your lifeif youre like me, it will happen in
your late twentiesyou will begin to experience the phenomenon of
which TR speaks. The person you were as a boy and a young man will
begin to seem like another individual, rather separate from your grown-
up self. Its a strange thing to experience. Its not that you lose
memories of your past, or necessarily let go of the youthful ideals and
traits that Wordsworth cherished, but simply that your boyhood self and
your current self come to seem like two distinct individuals.
Why does this cleaving between youth and adulthood occur? Surely
some of it can be chalked up to the simple passage of time; as you grow
older, your memories, and thus the attachment you feel to your past,
become hazier. But it is also likely has its roots in neurology.As wediscussed in ourpost about twentysomethings, your brain does not
finish setting up until around your mid-twenties, which is alsonot
coincidentally, I would arguearound the time that your youthful self
will begin to seem more like a distinct entity. The brain of your youth is
not the brain of your adulthood, and the latter can remember and view
the former almost as an outside observer.
What Kind of Man Are You Going to Father?
All this may be interesting to ponder, but it also has two practical
implications that are vital for young men to understand.
First, what your present self wants and desires probably isnt going to
be what your future self wants and desires. When were young, were
typically more present-focused. We worry about what can give us
pleasure NOW and not ten years from now. So we spend money insteadof save it, eat like crap, and play video games all night long, instead of
eating right, exercising, and seeking experiences that will grow our
minds and character. Sure, pleasure-oriented pursuits feel good in the
moment, but our future selves will probably prefer to have more moneyin the bank and less blubber around our mid-sections.
Second, at this very moment, you are creating or fathering the man
you will be in five, ten, and twenty years. So you want to be a
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successful, financially secure, physically fit, and well-adjusted forty-
year-old? What actions are you taking NOW as a twenty-year-old to
father that man? Just like one dayyoull need to be intentional about
fathering your biological children, right now you need to be intentional
about fathering your future self. Will you be an absentee dad who
leaves your 30-year-old self feeling lost and adrift? Or will you raise a
man who is intelligent, virtuous, and able to tackle life with confidence
and vigor? No one can control the kind of biological father they areborn with. But every young man can strive to be the best possible father
to his future self.
Doing this doesnt mean taking life too seriously and eschewing the fun
you should be having as a young adult. It simply means establishing a
set of foundational habits that will serve you well now and that you will
thank yourself for later.
As we explored in our series on your twenties,after your brain finishes
developing, changing your habits, while still possible, becomes harder.
For this reason, your youth is the best and easiest time to transformyourself into the man you want to become. The positive habits you
create as a young man will become a solid foundation you can build on
for the rest of your life. Whats more,research has found that simply
imagining yourself as an old person can increase your chances ofestablishing positive habits, like saving money.
Below are nine foundational habits that will help every young man raise
himself right.
1. Save 20% of Your Money
Many young men will say to themselves that when they finally start
making real money then theyll start saving. If only that were true. In
a post onthe financial regrets of college graduates, we mentioned that
the majority of men coming out of school wish they had started saving
sooner. It may seem hard when you dont have much income, but likeanything, starting small will increase your chances of future success
exponentially.
Make it a habit right now, no matter what your paycheck is, to put 20%
of your after-tax income into savings. The easy way to do it is to set up
an automatic transfer from your checking account to your savings
account the day after you get paid. That way, it comes right out of your
account just like a bill, and you dont even have to think about it. Dont
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be among the25% of Americanswho dont save at all. If you own a car
or a home, you know how stressful it can be when things inevitably go
awrythe air conditioner goes out, a tire gets punctured. Theres a
great sense of relief (and even pride) when you have the cash to handle
it instead of using credit.
2. Exercise Daily
Regular exercise providesa boatload of benefitsfrom improving
cardiovascular health, to fighting stress and depression, toincreasing
testosterone. Thus, there are few habits that will better ensure a lifetime
of success and well-being than making a daily workout a non-
negotiable part of your life. Instead of trying to get on the exercise
wagon when youre a tired, out-of-shape, middle-aged man with a lot of
responsibilities and very little time, make it a habit now when youre at
the top of your game. Regular exercise is a tough routine to start, but
once it becomes a solid habit, most people continue with it indefinitely.
The physical and psychological benefits become almost impossible to
give up.
3. Eat Healthy
If you want to avoid becoming a pot-bellied man, you need to establish
good eating habits today. Research has shown again and again that diet
is the biggest factor in maintaining a healthy weight.
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Unfortunately, many young men develop poor eating habits in high
school and college. With all-you-can-eat cafeterias and vending
machines all over campus, its easy for a poor diet to become the norm.
You can often get away with subsisting on pop tarts and pizza for a
while because of your scorching metabolism. But as you age and that
metabolism slows down, the junk food diet catches up with you and the
pounds start piling on. Develop healthy eating habits now, so you dont
have to struggle to do a one-eighty when youre facing down your ten-year reunion with a 40-inch waist. Healthy eating doesnt have to be
complicated; for a good place to start,check out Steve Kambs easy to
follow guide to the paleo diet over on Nerd Fitness.
4. Plan Weekly and Daily
If I were asked which habit has contributed most to my success and
well-being as an adult, Id have to say weekly and daily planning. The
power of planning lies in the perspective and control it provides for
your life; it gives you both a broad, birds-eye view of the maze that
must be navigated to achieve your long-term goals, and the ability to
manage the small, day-to-day tasks that are essential to reaching those
aims. Without daily and weekly planning, you end up getting distracted,
forgetting what you need to do, and ending each day with the restlessanxiety born from knowing you pretty much wasted your daylight
again.
Take a look at our post on weekly and daily planning for tips and ideas
on how to start this habit.
5. Read for Pleasure
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Readers are leaders. If you talk to principals and teachers they often say
that nothing predicts a students success as well as whether or not they
read independently. This isnt very surprising reading expands your
mind andvocabulary,increases your creativity and empathy, andboosts
your critical thinking skills and attention span. As a young man youll
have plenty of required reading assignments for school, but be sure to
also always be reading something for pleasure as well.
Not sure what book to pick up first? Check out ourrecommended
reading listsand join theAoM book club!
6. Brush and Floss
This may sound like a silly habit to mention, but think about it: you
only get one set of teeth during your lifetime. Its not like losing hair or
getting wrinkles which are largely cosmetic problems; there are all
kinds of negative correlations to poor oral heath, including an increased
risk of cancer.The Mayo Clinic even says that your oral hygiene andhealth offers a window to your overall health. Unless you want to drop
a small fortune on fixing your cavities and eventually replacing them
with veneers or dentures, you need to take care of the teeth (and gums)
nature gave you. So brush those pearly whites two times daily and floss
every night. Your future self will thank you every time he eats an appleor corn on the cob with aplomb.
7. Meditate
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There is probably no habit more important for a young man in the 21st
century to establish than daily meditation. With the constant barrage of
distractions were subject to in the modern age, if you dont learn to
discipline your mind now, you can easily find yourself lying on your
death bed reviewing your life, and seeing only visions of BuzzFeed andyour iPhone flash before your eyes. Not only does meditation increase
your willpower,but it also fights stress, improves your mental andphysical health, and boosts your resiliency. And heres even more proof
that meditation will help your future self: recentstudies have shown
that regular meditation can slow down the onset of dementia.
Read our primer on meditation. It doesnt take much to get started. Start
off with 5 minutes a day and work your way up to 20 minutes a day.
Lately Ive been usingcalm.comfor some fantastic (and free!) guided
meditations.
8. Journal
When I did a book signing at the Tankfarm store back in May, an AoM
reader and I chatted a bit aboutthe importance of journaling. He made
this rather rough, but astute analogy: Your body takes a sh** to keep
everything running smoothly. Every now and then your mind needs totake a dump, too. A journal is basically a toilet for the mind.
Amen.
As Ive admitted, Im not the most regular journaler, but I always feel
on top of my game when Im consistent with it. Theres something
cathartic about working out your problems with pen and paper.
Whenever Ive hit a wall in life, its often through journaling that I find
the solution. Moreover,studies have shown that regular journaling
improves your emotional and physical health.
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Not only will your future self be grateful for the sense of well-being the
journal habit will bring, hell also be thankful that he has a catalog of
all the important events that have occurred in his life. I know from my
own experience that I enjoy reading my journals from my high school
and college days. It allows me to relive those important moments in my
life, reminds me of the youthful ideals and goals I dont want to lose
sight of, and provides me with perspective on how much Ive
progressed as a man.
9. Serve
Im a big believer in the idea that service is the rent we pay for living
on earth. In one way or another, weve all benefited from the work and
sacrifice of generations before us and from the love and support of
those around us. Give back by providing regular service.
The great thing about serving is that the more we give, the more we get.
Service makes our lives more meaningful and is a potent antidote to the
increasing narcissism in our culture.
What foundational habits do you think men should start when theyre
young? If youre an older man, what habits you formed when you
were young served you best later in l if e?
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