Summary
One Sentence Summary
One paragraph Summary
What is the foundational knowledge required for me to learn this?
Reading Comprehension questions from ChatGPT
What ACTIONS/HABITS will I partake after reading this book?
What Questions do I have after reading this book?
What Phrase(s) can I add/validate to my mantras?
- Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women
- The world and your woman will always present you with unforeseen challenges; you are either living fully, giving your gift in the midst of those challenges, even today, or you are waiting for an imaginary future which will never come
- It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift
- To be a man is to learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place
Part 1: A man’s way
Chapter 1: Stop Hoping for a completion of anything in life
Summary
Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women.
Notes
The masculine error is to think that eventually things will be different in some fundamental way. They won’t. It never ends. As long as life continues, the creative challenge is to tussle, play, and make love with the present moment while giving your unique gift.
It’s never going to be over, so stop waiting for the good stuff. As of right now, spend a minimum of one hour per day doing whatever you ware waiting to do until your finances are more secure, or until the children have grown and left the house, or until you have finished your obligations and you feel free to do what you really want to do.Don’t wait any longer.
Do what you love to do, what you are waiting to do, what you’ve been born to do, now.
Spend at least one hour a day doing whatever you simply love to do, whatever you deeply feel you need to do, in your heart–in spite of the daily duties that seem to constrain you.
However, be forewarned: you may discover that you don’t, nor can’t, do it–that what you imagine would happen is just that: a fantasy. Proceed with humility.
Limited money and family obligations have never stopped a man who really wanted to do something, but they do provide an excuse for a man who is not really up for the creative challenge in the first place.
Find out today whether you are willing to do what it takes to give your gift fully.
The same applies with your woman. Make no effort to bring an end to that which pisses you off. Practice love instead of trying to bring an end to the quality that bothers you. You can’t escape the tussle with the feminine. Learn to find humor in the unending emotional drama that the feminine seems to enjoy.
The world and your woman will always present you with unforeseen challenges; you are either living fully, giving your gift in the midst of those challenges, even today, or you are waiting for an imaginary future which will never come.
Men who have lived significant lives are men who never waited: not for money, security, ease, or women.
Chapter 2: Live with an open Heart, even if it hurts
Summary
True strength comes from living an open and authentic life while resisting the urge to retreat back into the womb of warmth and safety. To be a man is to learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place
Notes
If necessary, a man should live with a hurting heart rather than a closed one. He should learn to stay in the wound of pain and act with spontaneous skill and love even from that place.
Shit, this is exactly what Singer mentions in chapter 5 of his book, “The Untethered Soul”.
Any attempt to hide, flee, or retreat back into the womb are signs of unskillful reaction to hurt. Trapped by the womb, you are no longer a free man.
The superior man practices opening during these times of automatic closure. Look directly into the eyes of whoever you are with, feeling your own pain as well as feeling the other person. Don’t struggle, and don’t settle–stay relaxed right in between.
To act as a superior man, a samurai of relationship, you must feel the entire situation with your whole body. A closed body is unable to sense subtle cues and signals, and therefore unable to act with mastery in the situation.
Side note: how is living with an open heart different from allowing other people to disrespect you? Maybe because no one can offend you without your concent. Living with an open heart doesn’t mean you have to accept disrespect. You can still approach life with empathy and compassion while setting firm boundaries that protect your self-worth. Allowing disrespect isn’t a reflection of an open heart. Allowing others to disrespect you can stem from a lack of self-love and self-worth. You can be both companionate and empathetic while having clear boundaries.
Chapter 3: Live as if your father were dead
Chapter 4: Know your edge and don’t fake it
Chapter 5: Always hold to your deepest realization
Chapter 6: Never change your mind just to please a woman
Chapter 7: Your purpose must come before your relationship
Chapter 8: Lean just beyond your edge
Chapter 9: Do it for love
Chapter 10: Enjoy your friend’s Criticism
Chapter 11: If you don’t know your purpose, discover it, now
Chapter 12: Be willing to change everything in your life
Chapter 13: Don’t use your family as an excuse
Chapter 14: Don’t get lost in tasks and duties
Chapter 15: Stop Hoping for your woman to get easier
Part 2: Dealing with Women
Chapter 16: Women are not liers
Chapter 17: Praise her
Chapter 18: Tolerating her leads to resenting her
Chapter 19: Don’t analyze your woman
Chapter 20: Don’t suggest that a Woman will fix her own emotional problem
Chapter 21: Stay with her intensity–to a point
Chapter 22: Don’t force the Feminine to Make Decisions
Part 3: Working with Polarity and Energy
Chapter 23: Your attraction to the feminine is inevitable
Chapter 24: Choose a woman who is your complimentary opposite
Chapter 25: Know what is important in your woman
Chapter 26: You will often want more than one woman
Chapter 27: Young women often offer you a special energy
Chapter 28: Each woman has a temperature that can heal or irritate you
Part 4: What women really want
Chapter 29: Choose a woman who chooses you
Chapter 30: What she wants is not what she says she wants
Chapter 31: Her complaint is content-free
Chapter 32: She doesn’t really want to be number one
Chapter 33: Your Excellent track record is meaningless to her
Chapter 34: She wants to relax in the demonstration of your direction
Part 5: Your Dark Side
Chapter 35: You are always searching for freedom
Chapter 36: Own your darkest desires
Chapter 37: She wants the “killer” in you
Chapter 38: She needs your consciousness to match her energy
Part 6: Feminine Attractiveness
Chapter 39: The feminine is abundant
Chapter 40: Allow older women their magic
Chapter 41: Turn your lust into gifts
Chapter 42: Never allow your desire to become suppressed or depolarized
Summary
If you choose to be the problem, then you choose to be the solution that can help resolve the issue, be it with your woman or your work. You always have a choice. YOU always have a CHOICE.
Notes
When a man denies his desire for the feminine, it is a sign of his depolarization even toward the world. A man has no excuse; he must cultivate a polarized relationship to his woman and his world if he is to remain in relationship with them.
YOU HAVE A CHOICE.
You could CHOOSE to give your gift as a renunciate celibate, living with only the most minimal engagement with the world and women, or you could CHOOSE to engage the world and women fully, as a way of giving your gift.
If YOU CHOOSE to engage the world and women fully, then you must maintain a certain degree of polarization or mutual attraction with them. Otherwise, you will begin to reject, resist, and resent the world and women around you–ultimately undermining your capacity to give your gift.
It’s YOUR CHOICE.
The mediocre man will leave his woman the moment things become stale–finding excitement in novelty. The mediocre man holds the same view with his career, work, and purpose.
Yet, it’s not time that kills the delight in a relationship, but rather familiarity, neutralization, and lack of purpose. It’s not your woman that’s worn-out, but your lack of desire that has faded. You have become so familiar with your woman that she has “rubbed-off” on you; familiarity breeds contempt.
A superior man always assumes complete responsibility, knowing that, ultimately, he has no control at all and everything is out of his hands. He acts with impeccable courage and persistence, expecting nothing but the inherent feeling of completeness he enjoys in the fullest giving of his gift.
When your woman is looking withdrawn or ugly, assume she is a goddess and needs your divine invasion of her heart and body.
Sometimes you must move on, to another job or another woman. That’s fine, if it is a true movement of growth: clear, empowering, and an aspect of the ongoing giving of your love. But be aware, as your first impulse to move comes when you have ceased invading the moment with your fullest capacity to give and instead are droning along, coping rather than creating.
Rather than deciding to move on because you are too weak to overcome your own neutralized lack of desire, try to take on the challenge of manifesting love in the dreary world and in your dreary woman.