 Were you ever told be a man? Doesn't that sound weird to you? Is it that means that you were... No! Is it that means that you're not a man by the fact alone that you were born a man, but that being a man is an But that being a man is an action and what's worse It's an incredibly stressful action to constantly perform without being yourself Hi, my name is Rokos Leo and today we'll speak about what it means to be a man So last week I was in Amsterdam, VidCon Europe for those who do not know it's the biggest YouTube event What happens in major regions every year and as YouTube is becoming an increasingly important part of my life I was lucky enough to be invited by my friend Philip Zeppelin a CO expert to be a participant there together with him During VidCon some major youtubers were there and also they gave some AMA and luckily enough two of my favorite Youtubers were there in VidCon Europe including MatPat of Game Theory and Anna Akana of Anna Akana, but this story is connected to Anna. For those who do not know Anna She's creating self-help videos on YouTube with brutal honesty and very great humor Well, I could talk more about her the game-changer that happened with this video was doing Anna Akana's AMA During it one of the guys asked her something along the lines of a question like whether guys should also do a self-help YouTube channel and she went on fire She started saying how self-help videos for men are extremely missing from YouTube That guys should talk more openly about the secret issues that all men actually have yet none talk about it And how beneficial that would be and while my main YouTube channel is about martial arts and guy stuff I still realized that this call needs to be answered and then in there. I told myself Anna It's a deal. So thank you Anna Akana for the inspiration and let's get on to the subject So as I told before Men are told to be men from early on get what does that really mean did anyone really explain to us in detail? What does it mean to be a man or did we have to figure out ourselves by observing other men? Including our fathers to pick it up Most of us went on learning what it means to be a man by observing others and hearing about such incredible feet as Men do not cry. Men are always strong Men do not have feelings and do not share them and while I'll talk about these one by one in the rest of the video Let's begin by looking at the issue of picking up things from other men or from our fathers First of all, what if a guy doesn't have a father? Is he doomed to not be a man for the rest of his life? should he change his sex in this passport to undeveloped and even those who have dads most of our dads are far away from what we would want to become When we grow up or when we develop as a man and they are far from perfect But we're still forced by society to live up to this image of a man based on our fathers image and of the man around us By the way, I love my dad. He's great. Well, no one's perfect. I'm talking in in general, right? Okay. Okay, let's move on Now to come back to the three mentioned qualities of a man. Let's start with the first one Men do not cry. Really? Are we physically incapable of crying? Do we not have some crying glands or something? And if we do cry, does that mean we're broken? Crying is actually a natural phenomenon. It is a means of releasing and venting out our built-up emotions If you do not allow yourself to vent those emotions, you're gonna have to swallow them down and keep them to yourself And what happens if you don't take your garbage for too long? Sure Most men vent in different ways beer sex Fighting not to say that anything is wrong with all three of those But is it really best to do all of them coming from built-up negative emotions? Do they really translate well to these actions if we realize that it is okay for men to cry? It doesn't mean you have to cry about everything, but should men refrain from crying at all. I would question that next one Men are always strong. Well, yes, physically most men are generally stronger than most women But even that is not always the case yet by nature our physiques have differences and normally men's physique is stronger But did you know that a man has to always be strong not only physically but also mentally and emotionally? Not to say that being strong mentally and emotionally is bad But he has to be that way all the time in the living world Everything has rhythms and cycles even nature has spring summer autumn winter and most have their cycles and well Women have their own cycles and it's normal yet men men know they cannot have their cycles They always have to be springtime and then always has to be confident always has to show success Always has to know what he's doing. Do you think it's possible if everything has rhythms and cycles? How can you expect a man to always be at his peak performance yet? What happens when both the man and his partners well expect him from that you're sitting up expectations Which are impossible to deliver and that means half of the time you will feel strong Yet all the time will be afraid to lose that feeling which causes a lot of extra stress and half of the other time You will feel totally miserable Just because you will think that you will always have to be strong and when you will not feel strong Then just it's a double damage and trying to cover that up and pretending that you are strong isn't a solution either Which brings me to my next point men do not have or share feelings. Let's start with the first bit Men do not have feelings which is already a ridiculous statement and expectation or that men are less easily hurt That are potentially better at not showing it that may be true But generally women are much more better at dealing with pain than men Did you ever see a video of a man going for the same artificially conducted pain of birth? They all bail out yet We still pretend that nothing has hurt us that we are unbeatable and Unbreakable while keeping all of our doubts and negative feelings to ourselves Choking with them as they gather and gather and keep on gathering and one of the best ways to actually free up those emotions So gathered emotions is to talk about it But yet again men do not talk about their feelings Which brings back again to the same problem of negative feelings accumulating in a man Not talking about your feelings brings us to even another issue when you are with a group of six guys and five out of six say that They're doing great that their sex life is great that everything is doing good being the sixth guy You think to yourself am I the only one who has issues and coming to that conclusion makes your situation even much Because again you feel like you're the young one having problems that nobody's gonna understand you and that you suck and that you fail Much more than others, but in reality Everyone has issues yet when you don't hear others telling you about it and everyone telling they're doing fine You start to think that something is wrong with you And then you go on and tell the next guy that you are doing fine Do you see the vicious cycle that I'm talking about here? It's not only the society pushing men to live up to Impossible standards. We are also doing this to each other and making it even worse Did you know that men are 1.8 times more prone to suicide than women and did you know that one of the main Explanations for this tragic phenomena is in relationship to social constructions of hegemonic masculinity You ask what that means it is male gender roles emphasizing greater levels of strength independence and status that often prevent men from seeking help for suicidal feelings and depression All of this vicious circle has to stop and the first way to stop it is first of all to start bringing awareness to it To talk more about it and to realize how ridiculous and toxic this behavior is Secondly, we should stop pushing this twisted idea to each other and stop expecting us both from ourselves and from others to live in an Artificial shell of unbreakableness is not real strength to turn yourself into a victim and to cry all the time about it It is important for both a man and a woman to maintain a sense of balance a sense of centeredness which helps us through difficult times Yet it takes guts to show actual emotions to admit that you're vulnerable that you are not perfect and to allow yourself to be that way That is what a true man is a person who lives and survives through hardship yet Does not pretend that it doesn't exist a person who understands his emotions and respects his both strong and weak sides at the same time Because in the end no one of us is perfect to be perfect is to actually be yourself Well, we could talk more about specific methods how to deal with all of these situations as they arise in our social surroundings Talking about it and identifying this problem is the very first and very important step to begin with and in terms of some life hacks How to deal with it? I will share in the next video But before I finish if you agree that men should not be expected to be unbeatable Machines and that they should allow themselves to admit and accept their feelings Make sure you share this video saying to your board friends brothers fathers and your guy friends They deserve to know how stupid it is to try to be a man This was Roku's Leo and I'll see you in the next video Hopefully in already a better world that we already created together