After The Checklist

Many women may not fully comprehend the social pressures placed upon men and the toll these take over time. Through lived experience, many men come to realise that the world assigns them little inherent value. Instead, their worth is often measured by a societal checklist of "success" - a deeply harrowing, almost mechanical, tick-box exercise. Build a career, cultivate good friendships, have a family, maintain a fit body, attract beautiful women, accumulate wealth, acquire assets, and indulge in the occasional vice. Complete these tasks and you will supposedly find true meaning.

Yet, the quiet unspoken truth is that many men who reach this threshold discover an unsettling reality - having achieved all the prescribed markers of "success", they feel not joy, but relief - tinged with an inexplicable hollowness. Where society insists they should feel triumphant, a whisper within suggests otherwise. This unease and dissonance is an invitation from their inner self.

This is when many men begin their true inner work, questioning the high standards they have imposed upon themselves - often born from wounds of self-worth. The external crude notion of "success" rarely aligns with the soul’s deeper desires. This misalignment breeds sadness and a hollow ache - disorienting in its intensity, as though the rug of purpose has been pulled from beneath them. They feel betrayed by their own achievements, haunted by the realisation that what is supposed to feel good - does not. The colours of life seem more muted, the flavours more dulled, and the soul completely hollowed out. It is a quiet suffering that goes largely unnoticed and undetected by the very society that claims to celebrate inclusivity.

Men often carry the burden of others silently, unwilling to add to the weight borne by those they love - absorbing accountability, pain, and blame. Many men feel guilty for even wanting to voice these feelings to those closest to them. Is that not deeply and profoundly beautiful? To notice and absorb the pain of others, while ignoring the calls of one’s own soul? Yet, this is not the path of the hero. The hero must face the dragon.

Men are not and have never been burdens - nor are they "failures" for feeling this way. They are the quiet guardians of our society, holding it together with their resilience and selflessness. Yet they are also human. It is okay to pause and to be gentle with oneself. Men are rarely extended kindness - to the point that when they do receive genuine care or belief - they often do not know how to process it or where to place it. Despite this, most men are inherently good. They want to contribute meaningfully to the world - even when their efforts are not immediately rewarded. It is a quiet and noble beauty.