How to Be a Gentleman

A couple of good pieces of advice on being a gentleman courtesy of Esquire:

"Being a gentleman in the modern age is about protecting the craftsmanship that goes into these beautiful things [clothes, shoes, accessories], and about living in a considered way. It’s about being an interesting human, about being inquisitive, about understanding things and knowing about the things you’re surrounding yourself with in life. And it’s also about allowing yourself to get drunk at lunchtime and have a great afternoon."

"How you go about living your life is what sets you apart as a gentleman, rather than necessarily the things that you wear. I think anyone can wear these clothes."

This is part of a Q&A about men's style with Patrick Grant; here's the link to the full interview

Wait, how did that part about lunchtime drinking get highlighted?  Completely accidental...

A Homeless Veteran's Transformation

If you know me, you know that men’s style is something that I’m passionate about. I’ll spare you the details of why, but the long and short of it is that how you present yourself to the world not only influences how others look at you, but also how you look and feel about yourself. That is why this video is beyond amazing. It might just be a small step in the right direction for this gentleman, but it’s a step nonetheless.

Keep Things in Perspective

A simple truth: life is all about perspective. The easy thing to do in life is to focus only on ourselves and our individual issues. If we broaden our scope, however, we realize that there are oftentimes much more serious issues that exist in the world. It’s not a bad thing to focus on ourselves and improving our respective situations, but we have to also realize that someone else has it worse. Sounds straightforward enough, but life has a way of making sure we truly have our perspectives straight.

Just this past Sunday I found myself complaining about having to go to work on Monday, how the weekend’s too short, and a bunch of other nonsense. Later that night, I found out that a high school classmate of mine lost her long battle with cancer. The next day, I found out that my cousin had a successful kidney transplant and the results are positive to this point, but he’s still suffering a lot of pain. And I’m sitting here complaining about having to go to work?

As cliché as it may be, that doesn’t make it any less true: our job on this earth is to live life to the fullest. We should be doing this for ourselves anyway, but at the very least we should do it for those who haven’t been afforded the same opportunities to do so. Nothing is guaranteed to us, so we shouldn’t squander the time that we have. Again, life is about perspective; go back to the old adage that if we all put our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

So let’s appreciate and enjoy the time we’ve been given, help others, and maybe throw a smile or two in the mix along the way. That sounds like a good life to me.

JIP

Herm Edwards Gets It Right

I promise I'll use this blog for writing again at some point (for better or worse), but for now I'll just leave you to listen to Herm Edwards talk to the Alabama football team.

Don't care for Alabama?  Misguided, but that's okay.  Care about getting a little motivation in your system?  Then this is worth checking out.

Part Uno:                                                                                                                                                    

Part Dos:

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This is dope...congrats to the Heat.

Yes, Practice

Will Smith still wins (kind of)

"...fear is not real.  It's a product of thoughts you create.  Now do not misunderstand me: Danger is very real, but fear is a choice."

At least he snuck a solid quote into an otherwise terrible movie. (According to these guys, not me.  I'm just the messenger.)

Act like you've been there before...

Vince Lombardi said it, this kid did it.

Plies was (kind of) right once

It pains me to say this, but Plies may have made a valid point in one specific instance during the height of his popularity. Everybody remembers Plies, right? If you don’t, don’t worry about it...you probably don’t want to dig any of his stuff up. But Plies had a line in one song saying that he didn’t have enough haters. At the time, I thought it was dumb, mainly because I felt you shouldn’t go out looking for haters. That doesn’t make sense.

Now, however, I examine that line through a different lens. “Haters” are a natural part of life. You’re always going to have detractors. Especially with the social media outlets that exist now, people have countless ways to talk about whatever the hell they want. But let’s think bigger picture here. The folks who have the most haters are the ones who operate on a larger scale. Beyonce lip syncing the National Anthem at the inauguration? That got so much attention. I’m talking about everyone I’ve ever met somehow became a music critic. But the fact remains that she had the credentials to even get the opportunity to perform on that large of a scale. Basically, the more successful you are, the more people are going to disagree with things that you do or don’t do. And that’s fine. We’re not here to please everybody, we’re here to be successful, whatever that means to us as individuals and collectively.

So, Plies was kind of right. Maybe not in the context he mentioned it, but you do need haters in life. That means you’ve done something worthy of people hating. You’ve showed up. Sometimes that’s all it takes. You keep showing up, and who knows what will happen? They might be hating on you for trying to go all Marvin Gaye on the national anthem. I mean, you probably shouldn’t do that, but what do I know? I’m a hater.

Monday Inspiration courtesy of Kid President