“To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two – spend some time in thought. Number three; you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think, and cry, that’s a heck of a day.” – Jim Valvano (North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano died in 1993 after a 10-month courageous battle with bone cancer. He was only 47 years old).
How many times have we heard that “Men don’t cry?”. This singular statement, which I am sure if we are adults, we have heard since we were very young as male children. It is my opinion that this statement has unleashed untold emotional havoc in the lives of many men, and caused incalculable damage to their emotional well being.
Given the way we have been conditioned from childhood not to cry, boys are taught to keep silent. Hold back their anger. Conceal their grief. It takes a lot of courage for a man to let go and let his emotion loose by shedding tears in public, or private for that matter. Most men as a result of conditioning think crying is a sign of “weakness” as a man.
According to the “code of manliness” – Men don’t cry; show no emotion that may be interpreted as weakness; you keep it all on the inside.
It time to change this code of manliness and do the right thing for our boys so that they grow up emotionally balanced. It is time to assert “It is ok for a man to let go, not keep it all on the inside – It is ok for a man to cry!
A man should be free to let go of his emotions – to cry. Not overdoing it I dare say.
There are quite a number of occasions when it is appropriate and acceptable to cry. In truth, bottling your emotions makes one weaker in the long run. Bottled up feelings are not good for our mental, emotional and physical well being.
The difference between men and women is that women have been conditioned that is it quite ok to let go and let the emotions flow. Is it little wonder that this is one of the reasons women tend to live longer than their male counterparts?
Brothers, I say it is fit and proper that there are quite a number of circumstances in which a man can let go his emotions and cry. It is not logical for a man not to show any kind of emotion when the occasion demands it. We are only human. Whether we want to admit it publicly or not we, do have feelings. Crying is a natural human emotion. Men should cry when the occasion demands it, it shows we are human and have feelings.