August has always been a month of death, and rebirth, for me. That wasn’t something that I noticed until recently, but the discovery lead me to explore the idea of metamorphosis in man. As men, we go through a series of changes in our life as a result of life experiences, both good and bad, that have an affect on us . Most of us only loosely plan for some of those changes and yet still there are other life events that pop-up out of nowhere that we didn’t see coming at all. From those events come changes, significant changes in ourselves, metamorphosis. On the other side of those events of life we come out of them a little different because of the changes that we had to make to ourselves going forward. Sometimes the changes are significant changes in terms of development and growth while still other changes can result in killing off part of ourselves in a symbolic death of an old version of us. Perhaps the best example of that is when men become fathers—wherein you’re now responsible for someone else’s life so you make changes to your own life to accommodate theirs. Other changes come on the heels of other life events that call upon us to make a change for the better or suffer the fate of the slug. While not everyone is blessed enough to know the changes men make when they become a father, and perhaps not all of us have known the pain of looking in the mirror at 4am for your self-reckoning, but by now all of us should have trod upon the path to manhood by making changes in their life.

Believe it or not there is an entire population of adult males that have no idea what it means to be a man, But that does pose the question: what is a man? It’s something that we all define differently because, for the most part, it can vary depending on what sort of demands your geographic homeland demands. (E.g. a man in Alaska may have different duties than a man in the Amazon rain forest, but neither is less of a man because of their inability to perform the demands of their counterpart.) But the one thing that does hold true in any geographic region or culture is that being a man means more than just showing up—it means being an active participant with the intention of improving your position and not just maintaining it the same way that the student that actively participates in class, studies, and makes it a point to do well excels beyond the student who just shows up for class on time and is regularly in attendance.

I can tell you that first hand because there was a time in my life where I thought just showing up was enough. I thought that going to work everyday, earning a paycheck, and keeping the bill collectors at bay was a justifiable position in calling myself “a man.” Wrong. That’s just the beginning. That’s the bare minimum. Being a man is more about not accepting mediocre and less about just providing. Providing is granted; it’s expected. Being a man is going beyond that which is expected of you to give someone something to talk about. You have to earn the title. Being a man in today’s society should be a focus on bringing in the New Age of Heroes.

Remember being in elementary school and having the debate with your classmates about who’s dad could beat up everyone else’s dad? How about reading about great historical figures like Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Achilles, Miyamoto Musashi, Spartacus, Hannibal of Carthage? There’s a reason why their names still echo through eternity and that’s because of the impact that they made on this earth. They were, and still are, highly influential individuals who’s example has stood the test of time. Through their actions their example gives people something to talk about. There was heroic courage that ran through their blood that gave other men a divine inspiration to become more . Their actions gave the men that followed them the encouragement to have that metamorphosis to change from someone who “just shows up” to become a man of action.

“Be alert, stand firm in the faith, act like a man, be strong.”

— Paul the Apostle

As men today we need to be at the forefront of ushering in the New Age of Heroes. When historians reflect back in time, they won’t be touching on the blue collar man that held his town together during the pandemic of 2020. They won’t be having their students write term papers on the group of people who kept their community alive by keeping it beautiful and clean because they refused to let it become an eyesore. It will be up to us to preserve those names in history as much as it is up to you to secure your name among those that are mentioned. We must strive to be more than common, we must be brave enough to test the waters by exploring our limitations and not just resting on what we feel we are capable of. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror at 4am with a sense of encouragement, pride, promise, and hope so that we can step out into that day and conquer it with a rabid resistance to being a guy who just pays the bills. We cannot accept that life and call ourselves “a man.”

Embrace these difficult times. We were born for this. We are in the exact right place and the exact right time to unleash ourselves on a world that desperately needs heroes. Your metamorphosis is here. The death of an old life and the birth of something new is in your hands. The New Age of Heroes is ready to add your name to the hushed tones of taverns to be mentioned among others out there in the wasteland of this empire as a man who dared to be great. As a man who put it on the line. Embrace your opportunity to transform into something great and let the metamorphosis in man be the spark that ignites the fire. And if you do become on of those men, I’ll see you out there.