Something Gammas Will Never Understand
The art of male competition
Last night was the Harbaugh bowl. Two hypercompetitive brothers, one a Super Bowl-winning coach, the other the most recent national championship-winning coach, both coaching playoff-caliber football teams in the NFL. Before the game, the younger brother, Jim, accurately summed up the spirit of male competition.
“I love my brother. I'd lay down my life for my brother, but I would not let him win a football game.”
As it happened, the older brother’s Ravens beat the younger brother’s Chargers, making him 3-0 against his younger brother. But as you can see from this video of their meeting before the game, the results are irrelevant with regards to the affection they have for each other.
One thing women and low-status men tend to have trouble understanding is that male respect is not earned by success. There are very successful men who are regarded as contemptible by all their peers despite their success, and there are relatively unsuccessful men who have the respect of all their peers despite their lack of success. Because male respect is earned by integrity and effort.
If you want to earn the respect of your fellow men, you need to show up every time and you need to give your best effort. No excuses, no explanations, no justifications. This is why Deltas are usually more highly regarded by their fellow men than by the opposite sex.
This regard for integrity and effort is why one will often see two fighters, who have just spent the last 20 minutes attempting to beat the hell out of each other, embracing after the fight. There is no sport that better exposes the character of a man than fighting, and it’s hard for men not to love and admire other men who exhibit courage as well as integrity and 100 percent dedication to the cause.
And, on the flipside, it’s hard for men not to feel contempt and disgust for men who quit, who make “business decisions”, who shirk in fear, and who jog when they could run.
Show integrity. Put in the effort. It won’t guarantee success, but it will not only increase your chances of success, it will increase the respect you are given by other men.
Yes! And the Gamma tendency to shoot off his mouth and then cringe and cower if he's ever called to back it up with action makes this so much worse. Contempt is really the only response to it.
An example. Gamma son was teasing Bravo son about not being able to do a one armed pushup. Husband told Gamma to stop talking and show Bravo how it's done. Cue the litany of excuses, sore wrist, bum shoulder, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, Bravo took on the challenge and now he can do one armed pushups.
There's nothing new under the sun. There has always been that guy on the crew who has to go to the office to make some phone calls at precisely the same time that the concrete truck shows up. That guy will always exists because human nature never changes. The whole man's-movement-blogosphere-influencer nonsense exists to feed off this guy.
Why? What is the underlying issue with this portion of the male population? The answer is fear. Debilitating fear of failure. Fear so strong that some men create fantasy worlds to avoid any possibility of failure. Failure = death.
You can get over your fear of failure by getting used to failing. The more you fail the less you'll care. So, what if that hot girl shoots you down? What are the consequences for you? There is none. Did you think she was going to shave your head and send you to Afghanistan? Get a grip, man. It's just a woman. Quit being afraid of what other people think about you. Free yourself from the prison of other people's opinions.