Itâs not easy being men â and honestly, it never was.
You're expected to fix leaky faucets you didn't break, carry emotional baggage with zero training, and navigate life using a script written in the 1950s.
You were told to be tough but sensitive, stoic but romantic, funny but not too goofy, successful but not cocky... oh, and cry â but only at sports movies.
If youâve ever felt like being a man comes with a confusing manual (that someone lost, probably on purpose), youâre not alone.
It Is Not Easy Being Men is part hilarious truth-telling, part deep emotional excavation â and 100% a rally cry for any man who's tired of pretending he's fine when he's actually... just trying to make it through another group text without saying âlolâ too many times.
Inside, you'll explore:
The silent pressures you didnât know had names (but definitely have symptoms)
How to redefine success without burning out or buying a boat
Rebuilding real friendships (beyond fantasy football and memes)
Healing the wounds you swore werenât there
Building a life thatâs more meaningful than your rĂ©sumĂ©
Itâs not easy being men â and honestly, it never was.
You're expected to fix leaky faucets you didn't break, carry emotional baggage with zero training, and navigate life using a script written in the 1950s.
You were told to be tough but sensitive, stoic but romantic, funny but not too goofy, successful but not cocky... oh, and cry â but only at sports movies.
If youâve ever felt like being a man comes with a confusing manual (that someone lost, probably on purpose), youâre not alone.
It Is Not Easy Being Men is part hilarious truth-telling, part deep emotional excavation â and 100% a rally cry for any man who's tired of pretending he's fine when he's actually... just trying to make it through another group text without saying âlolâ too many times.
Inside, you'll explore:
The silent pressures you didnât know had names (but definitely have symptoms)
How to redefine success without burning out or buying a boat
Rebuilding real friendships (beyond fantasy football and memes)
Healing the wounds you swore werenât there
Building a life thatâs more meaningful than your rĂ©sumĂ©
Chapter 1: The Old Blueprint
Workbook Activity: Reclaiming Your Story
The Old Blueprint
Before we can rebuild something better, we have to understand what weâre standing on. And for men, that foundationâthe blueprint of what it meant to "be a man"âwas carved deeply into generations past.
The Old Blueprint wasnât written in books. It was written in expectations, glances, rules never said aloud but clearly understood.
If you were a boy growing up 50 years agoâor even 20 years agoâyou absorbed it by osmosis:
Be strong. Be silent. Provide. Protect. Donât cry. Donât need. Donât break.
There wasnât a conversation about it. There wasnât a manual you got handed at 13. There was simply life around you, pointing in one direction: manhood as performance and sacrifice.
Across Cultures: The Universal Pressure
While traditions varied by culture, country, and class, the core elements of masculinity were eerily similar worldwide:
â In postwar America, a manâs worth was linked to how hard he worked and how little he complained.
â In rural communities, boys were taught to surviveâto endure storms, broken bones, droughts, death.
â In immigrant families, providing was a sacred duty, a repayment to generations who had sacrificed for a better life.
â In urban neighborhoods, respect had to be earned early and defended fiercelyâoften through toughness and control.
From boardrooms to barbershops, farm fields to factory lines, the message echoed: Real men donât feel. They fight. They fix. They finish the job.
The Rewards of the Old Model
Itâs important to recognize: The Old Blueprint workedâfor a time.
It created:
â Stability in families battered by wars, poverty, and instability.
â Communities that valued grit, loyalty, duty.
â Generations that could rebuild homes, businesses, and economies from nothing.
â Fathers and grandfathers who sacrificed dailyâand often silentlyâfor their families' survival.
This model built skyscrapers. It ended wars. It moved humanity forward in incredible ways.
If you ever wonder why older generations cling fiercely to those ideals, itâs because they were survival tools.
And survival often demands hard, rigid rules.
The Invisible Costs
But survival comes at a cost when it becomes a life sentence.
The Old Blueprint worked well for endurance. It worked terribly for emotional connection, mental health, and self-worth beyond performance.
Unspoken side effects of the Old Blueprint:
â Fathers distant from their children, unable to say "Iâm proud of you" or "I love you."
â Sons modeling strength so well they forgot how to model humanity.
â Marriages where men carried silent burdens until they crackedâor disappeared emotionally.
â Workaholism, alcoholism, violence, depressionâhidden because talking about pain wasnât allowed.
Many men built empires on the outside while feeling utterly bankrupt inside.
The world saw strength. Inside, many men saw only loneliness.
Tomâs Story
Tom is 67. A retired factory worker. A husband, father, grandfather.
He was good at survival:
â He worked 60-hour weeks.
â He never complained.
â He fixed what was brokenâat home, at work, in his body.
When he was a boy, his own father said:
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Tom handled it. He buried his father young. He carried financial burdens he never spoke of. He coached Little League while worrying about mortgages.
Now, sitting in a recliner across from his 5-year-old grandson, Tom faces a different kind of challenge:
His grandson runs to him, arms wide open:
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And Tom freezes.
The words are thereâbut decades of armor stand in the way.
Tomâs face softens. He pats the boyâs head and says, awkwardly:
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He means "I love you too"âbut the words feel foreign, almost dangerous.
Tom isnât cold. He isnât cruel.
Heâs just a man who lived so long without emotional language that now, when he needs it most, itâs missing.
His story isnât failure. Itâs evidence of survival at a cost.
The Cultural Forces That Reinforced the Blueprint
In Tomâs prime, the media mirrored the masculine ideal:
â John Wayne never flinched, never cried, never second-guessed.
â James Bond faced death and heartbreak with a smirk and another mission.
â Rocky Balboa bled and foughtânot because he wanted glory, but because pain was expected.
â The Marlboro Man â stoic, solitary, always strong, always silent.
Popular sayings of the era reinforced the code:
â "Man up."
â "Handle your business."
â "Don't show weakness."
â "Real men donât need anyone."
Men didnât learn these lessons by reading a manual. They learned by absorbing the worldâs silent expectations.
And so, armor became second nature.
What WorkedâAnd What Didn't
Emotional Lessons Boys Were Taught (And Carried Into Manhood)
â Your value = what you produce.
â Feelings are a liability.
â Pain must be swallowed, never shared.
â Love must be earned, not freely given.
â Asking for help means you are weak.
These lessons donât disappear when a boy turns 18. They grow harder, sharperâand heavier.
Many men today are still carrying them.
And itâs no wonder so many feel exhausted, disconnected, uncertainânot because they are broken, but because the world changed, and the blueprint didnât.
Why Evolution Is Necessary
This isnât about shaming the past. The old masculine ideals were forged in the fires of necessity.
But survival isnât the goal anymore.
Thriving is.
And thriving demands a broader, braver version of manhood:
â One that still values strengthâbut strength of heart, not just body.
â One that still honors sacrificeâbut also embraces emotional nourishment.
â One that welcomes vulnerability alongside victory.
â "Iâm hurting. I need help. I love you."One that knows the bravest thing a man can sometimes do is say:
The world doesnât need less masculinity. It needs fuller masculinityâone that makes room for the full range of human experience.
Just like Tom reaching awkwardly for words he never learned, todayâs men are reaching for a new way to live.
And thatâs not weakness.
Itâs evolution.
đ§ Workbook Activity: The Old Blueprint
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Reflection Exercise:
â Write down three major messages you received about being a man growing up.
â For each message, ask yourself:
1. Does this belief still serve the man I want to be today?
2. What part of it needs to evolve, expand, or be released?
Next Step: Circle one belief youâre ready to challengeâand take one action this week that reflects the new story you want to live.
The winds of change are blowing. The earth beneath is shifting. It all began in the 1990s, when the third wave of feminism brought about the most significant societal changes, primarily focused on equality, independence, and the rise of women to positions of power and prominence. As a direct consequence, many men today feel disoriented, displaced, and uncertain about their roles.
To their dismay, men find that the traditional blueprint of masculinityâbecoming a sole provider, a tough yet sensitive leader, and an unwavering stoic â no longer works; a new blueprint is desperately needed. Compounding the problem, even as men and women are just about learning to adapt to their redefined roles, comes the news that feminism hasnât brought women quite the results they expected! Feminists had heady expectations initially, but over time, they noticed women suffered unintended consequences more than men. First, scores of women divorced unsuitable partners, rejected suitors, etc. only to find themselves trapped in what many consider the greatest curse in life: loneliness. Second, single women feel insecure. Third, although claiming equality, women dislike doing household tasks that men do, like replacing a punctured car tire, repairing a blown fuse, and so on.
Summary? Feminists are continually rethinking solutions that address their just grievances. Accordingly, renewed blueprints for masculinity will have to change to keep up. And the pressing question now is: how will men cope?
It Is Not Easy Being Men by Kakkle Publications shines a much-needed spotlight on this highly disturbing issue from the POV of men. They are especially vulnerable, having long trained themselves to be tough and stoic, so they often suffer in silence. The pressure may be killing them, yet they wonât seek help!
I found value in this book because of the pre-eminence of the problem it addresses: men under siege. The vast majority of suicides in the USA today (nearly 80%) are by men. Their stubborn refusal to seek help early ends in mental health issues and growing numbers of men in need of counseling/treatment.
The book helpfully identifies changes that men must accept in the changing man-woman dynamic of modern society. It isnât too hard to change, but not too easy either! This book offers simple interactive exercises at the end of each chapter and a list of resources (books, videos, and websites) at the end to aid in the transition.
Surprisingly short, the bookâs 142 pages can be read in less than a day. More-than-generous spacing and indentation in the text results in a noticeable paucity of words on most pages. To the authorâs credit, it has zero language errors. However, there are numerous formatting issues. Primarily because of the undeniable importance of the subject, I assign it 4 stars.
Needless to say, the audience for this book is English-literate men and women, first in the USA and next, all across the globe. It doesnât need a recommendation from me because, like a book on sex, it holds instant appeal for both sexes and that appeal itself, I believe, will make it sell in numbers both inside and outside the US!