I think one of the most beneficial ways for us as men to improve the way we feel about ourselves is to live a life of honour. The word ‘honour’ is rarely used in modern speech and understood even less in our society.
To live a life of honour we as men must live by a code or belief in something greater than ourselves, something worth living for or even dying for.
Living a life of honour means living a life of integrity and being a man of your word even in the face of adversity. Standing up for those values you believe in doesn’t always make you a lot of friends immediately, but what it does earn you is respect. When other men look at you, they may not fully understand why you live this way, but deep inside themselves they often wish they had the strength and belief to live like you do.
Being a man of honour goes a long way toward developing a healthy self-respect, and often adds meaning and a sense of fulfilment to our lives.
In the books of ancient times we see the knights in shining armour fighting off the dragon and saving the fair maiden in distress and we think that’s heroic. We see Sir Walter Raleigh throwing down his cloak so that Queen Elizabeth 1 didn’t have to get her shoes dirty while crossing over a puddle of water, and we think that’s chivalrous. We see the Christians of the early church worshipping God in song as they were preparing to be martyred by being fed to the lions in the Roman Colosseum, and we think that’s real faith.
As men we have an inherent desire to be a protector and defender of those weaker than ourselves, and it is often this compulsion that causes us to perform great acts of bravery. This desire stems from a deep place within ourselves where our core values exist and reveals the true way that we see our world and how we believe the world should be. Living by these core values whether it be through acts of heroism, acts of chivalry or demonstrations of incredible faith, enables us as men to live a life of honour.
Living a life of honour can be something as little as standing up in a bus and giving your seat to a woman or taking back the excess money to the store owner when you were under-charged for a purchase. Living a life of honour may mean telling the truth even though you know that you will suffer for it. Living a life of honour may mean defending someone who is being bullied or rescuing a child’s cat that is stuck up a tree.
Honour is that indefinable something that rises within a man when they see injustice in the world and know that it is up to them to change it.
Men of honour lead the way in the world, they shine as lights in a dark place and illuminate the path we are all called to walk upon.They are men that are known in their region as someone who can be trusted, and when the going gets tough they are the one everyone turns to for help or advice.
We all can influence our world for the better and that opportunity begins with living a life of honour. Fathers by their example, have great influence upon the future direction that their children will choose in life, one of the best parenting decisions we can make is to live a life of honour.
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