Unmasking Male Depression by Archibald D. Hart

Unmasking Male Depression by Archibald D. Hart

Author:Archibald D. Hart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-02-06T05:00:00+00:00


8

MEN’S NECESSARY LOSSES

I’ve developed a new philosophy.

I only dread life one day at a time.

CHARLIE BROWN

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing

greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for

whose sake I have lost all things.

ST. PAUL (PHILIPPIANS3:8)

All of life is loss. It starts the day we are born, when we lose the safety and comfort of the womb. Never again will we be as safe as there, protected by our mother’s immune system and the placenta. As we grow older, the potential for loss increases daily. When we graduate from kindergarten, we leave behind a safe place and special friends. When we transition from adolescence to adulthood, we again lose a degree of freedom and care-freeness. When we start to earn some money, we make investments and may lose all that hard-earned money. Very much later, we begin to lose our faculties, eyesight, teeth, and hair. Finally, we lose life itself. Life is all about loss— necessary losses.

From the perspective of the losses that must be endured, life is not a happy prospect. But this is how God has ordained it, so we either learn how to deal with loss in a positive way, or we will pay the penalty in melancholy or clinical depression. One of the most important psychological skills we must all master in life, therefore, is how to cope not just with life’s necessary losses but also the unnecessary ones, those losses that are caused by our mistakes and bad judgment. Men, in particular, need to master this skill; they struggle with it more than women because they generally stand to lose more.

Men struggle with losses because they are taught to be winners and over-comers, not losers and underachievers. They are encouraged to fight for whatever they want and to get back what they have lost. The way we socialize boys is to teach them that to be worthy, they must perform competitively and take out of life whatever it offers. So when they are faced with losses that are inevitable, like growing old or the failures that are necessary for success, they become depressed. But it isn’t the sort of depression that helps them to grieve their losses. All it does is put them in a bad mood. Nothing constructive comes of it.

NECESSARY AND UNNECESSARY LOSSES

Our losses can generally be divided into two categories: necessary and unnecessary. Necessary losses are those that we cannot avoid. They come as part of the life-deal. If you want to live a fulfilling life, you must be prepared to suffer losses along the way. Not only can we not avoid them, but progress in life often means we have to say good-bye to the past in order to embrace the future. We lose our childhood as we embrace adulthood. We lose our family home as we move out to set up a home for ourselves. We lose our sons and daughters as they get married and become attached to someone they now love more than us. We lose our hair as we discover that maturity isn’t the downer we thought it would be.



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