Young men, please pay attention to this. Rarely do we get such a vision of your two possible futures, so beautifully and starkly laid before us.

GUY #1

You may have seen this guy from Mali. He saw a child dangling from a building. He attacked the problem. He scaled the building. He rescued the little guy.

GUY #2

The four year-old’s dad, who is not in this video. Why is he nowhere to be seen, while his child’s life hangs in the balance? He wasn’t paying attention. He was playing video games.

—

Now, I’m going to keep this simple, because why not? Here you go. Remember this.

Every single woman in the world admires Guy #1. Every single woman thinks what he just did is very, very attractive.

Every single woman in the world thinks Guy #2 is highly unattractive.

Why?

Because every single woman loves men who take responsibility. Guy #2 doesn’t take responsibility. But Guy #1 not only takes responsibility for his own, he takes responsibility for people he doesn’t even know. (In fact, one may argue – as I have – that taking responsibility is at the very essence of real masculinity.)

Every single woman loves men who actually do things in real life. They are not impressed by men who rescue an entire virtual division in Call of Duty. They are very impressed by a man who physically does things in the real physical universe.

Every single woman loves a man who rises above the crowd. Guy #1 does this literally, of course. But think about it: He wasn’t the only one who saw that kid dangling. He was just the only one who said, “I’m fixing this.”

“But Brant,” you say. “These are really big blanket statements. ‘Every single woman…?’ Really? You can’t say that!”

But this is my blog post, and by golly, I’m going to post something once every six years, and I’m going to say it straight. Here’s another big blanket statement, worth remembering the rest of your life:

A man who’s primary “heroism” is virtual is not the man he could have been. Yes, video games are fun. I know that. I love them. I could play them my whole life. But I’ll be (let’s go with “darned”) if I’m going to look back on my life and see that my God-given drive for adventure and accomplishment was played out in pretend.

You can be Guy #1 or Guy #2. Decide now.

And choose wisely.

Read more stories like this one in Brant Hansen’s book Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They’re Missing Something.

<br />