How Only Chasing Women And Money Will Be The Downfall Of Men

I’m tired. But I plan on getting some much-needed rest. I’ve been running around since… sh*t – it’s been so long that I can’t even remember.

Truth be told, I know I’m not the only one. Most men come across the same problem as I have; we’ve been chasing things our entire lives. Worse even, most of us don’t plan on stopping any time soon.

What do men chase? Glory. Recognition. Respect. Power. Love. Pleasures. In other words… we chase women and money.

Why is it that we want so much out of life? Seriously, have you ever stopped to think why it is that you want it all? Sure, it’s what we hear people aiming for. It’s what pop culture and every rapper who ever lived tells us. It’s what every power-hungry guy with an ego-trip promises to do – to take over the world.

We want everything that the world has to offer, which – let’s be honest – boils down to money and women.

The problem is that while we want everything that the world has to offer, we overlook all that life itself has to offer; the two aren’t the same. We look only to the world, the physical world, for satisfaction.

We look to consume and to own. We want to be appreciated and loved, but usually for the wrong reasons. We want to experience as much as we can, never bothering to consider that experiences themselves have different levels of quality.

What exactly does it mean to experience something? It isn’t to live in that moment, in the right place and at the right time. You have to be present, but not just physically present. To experience something you have to be a part of it. You have to affect the moment, thing or person in some way.

Though quantum physics tells us that even looking at something affects it – which, by the way, is pretty insane if you think about it – looking alone will only give you the shallowest of experiences.

By chasing women and money, we aren’t really bothering to take the time, or make the effort, to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Men have become (or always were) nothing more than collectors. We decide that we want something and, assuming we are intelligent enough, go out and get it. Once we have it, we check it off our list, or put another notch in our belts, and move on to the next item on our agenda.

We are running from one item -- one experience -- to the next, doing our best to do as much as we possibly can before the day we die.

Herein lies the error of our ways. Quantity is not the goal. I’d even argue that quality alone isn’t the goal either. Men always have and always will be collectors.

The trick is to collect as much as you can while making sure that what you’re collecting is as valuable as possible. Quantity x Quality = what you should be aiming for.

Back to money and women, women and money. While money can buy you experiences, spending too much time making that money will lessen the amount of quality experiences that you will have. This is the reason we should all aim to make money by doing the things we love – two birds with one stone.

The same can be said about chasing tail; we’re so busy pulling down panties that even if we were to find the love of our lives, we wouldn’t notice. Or worse, we wouldn’t care because we’d be interested in the next collectable.

There is much more to life than women and money. While men cannot live without the two, they are not sufficient for making our lives valuable.

Running around without taking the time to slow down and experience the beauty of life – beauty that can only be found in the details – will make you miserable.

Technically, as long as you never slow down, up until the day you are no more, you won’t notice what a wasted life you lead. Ignorance is bliss once again. But what are the chances that you’ll remain ignorant to this fact your whole life?

The currently acceptable lifestyle for men is to chase women and money up until their 30s. The idea is that doing so will hopefully get the need out of their systems. Yet, as many of you will surely agree, it doesn’t quite work out that way.

Young bachelors turn into old ones and the young and driven turn into the old and greedy. It’s never too early to slow down and learn to appreciate the important things in life. In fact, I’d argue that it’s recommended we do so sooner than later.

Women don’t have this same problem that men seem to almost always face. I’m not sure whether it has to do solely with the social constructs that we created over the centuries or the fact that women have this innate ability to give themselves to another.

Whatever the case may be, men continue to pursue things in life that, although do have merit and worth, aren’t sufficient. Nor are they sustainable. We are only human and, as such, cannot continue running forever without running ourselves into the ground.

I love money and women just as much as the next guy. But I’m tired. I think I’ll try just living a little for a while.

Photo Courtesy: Paramount Pictures/Wolf of Wall Street

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