Think about it, does snapping in anger end after you've done it once or twice? No it simply fuels it so the next time is bigger and meaner. We turn to shallow imitations that never fully satisfy. Our question of 'Do I have what it takes?' is answered with an 'I don't know' and rather than find out we play it safe. It is the beauty without the requirements, and as John points out, 'more than anything else in a lost man's life, it makes him feel like a man without ever requiring a thing from him.'Īs caged beasts we don't believe we really are men. It will never leave you for a better looking or richer guy. Porn is something that will never tell you 'No' or 'Slow down'. And in place of beauty, which requires the strength that the challenges of adventure and battle are to prepare men to rescue, they turn to the safety of pornography. Or think about the guy who pushes his kid to the breaking point as he tries to live vicariously through him.

John talks about sports addicts who are glued to the TV every minute of the weekend. In place of adventure we live vicariously through others. Our core desire has gone unfulfilled and it works itself out in a destructive way. The smallest things make us snap because there is so much built up inside of us. Instead of battles we channel our built in aggression to anger against people who don't deserve it. But since we've been caged for so long it doesn't look like it was supposed to. The yearning for battle, adventure, and beauty never goes away. We are unsatisfied with our jobs, our relationships, and our lives in general.īut in all of this our desires are still there. We do our duty, and go through life miserable and dead, at least inwardly. I just thought of the line from the song Eye of the Tiger, 'So many times it happens too fast, you trade your passion for glory.', that's where many are at. We set aside our dreams and aspirations because we've decided to set our passions aside and simply exist. We've all been there, and if it goes on long enough, we begin to accept it as the life we've been given.

Not having the time or the space to do what I most love sucks the life out me. Being stuck in dead end jobs that I'm uninterested in and have absolutely no passion for doesn't help. Being unable to provide the simplest things for her doesn't help me feel very manly. Having to move my wife into my parent's basement simply so she has a roof over her head. Jobs have ended and new ones haven't opened up.

I've felt this way a lot in the last few years. and a man no longer believes he is a man.'

'For after years of living in a cage, a lion no longer even believes it is a lion.

John eldredge chapter 8 wild at heart