Men Without Direction

It was another wet and rainy day in Seattle. I was 27 years old, sitting on the couch, watching TV and drinking alone on a Friday night. These were the nights I looked forward to after working a job that kept me out of trouble during the week.

I had teammates I’d play rugby with. Surface level colleagues at work. Roommates who were nice. But weekends were usually like these. Drunk and high. By myself.

One morning, I thought, ‘should I just quit my job and disappear off the face of the earth?’

I wasn’t depressed in any clinical way. I was adrift. Coping with a break up that broke me. Trying to figure out who the hell I was and what I was doing with my life.

Millions of men are similarly without direction. Living some version of this same story that was my life less than a decade ago. That same lack of purpose, lack of drive, lack of hope, lack of connectedness. It’s a symptom of a larger cultural malaise hollowing out an entire generation of men.