Most men have given up. And they have found comfortable words for it.

The world is not favorable. Nobody empowers men. Somebody should come and do something for us.

That is not analysis. It is surrender with better vocabulary. And the reason I want to write about this is that I think the actual problem is simpler than the conversation around it, which is that hard things build men and most men have removed every hard thing from their lives.

Let me name what I actually see.

The married man who is performing

A man lives in a house that is not peaceful.

Daily friction. Words that wear him down over years. Nothing dramatic enough to name, just a slow erosion that has been running so long he has stopped noticing it as a thing that could be different.

He numbs it with alcohol, because sitting with it sober is unbearable.

Then he steps outside and performs. Everything is fine at home. Marriage is good. Family is blessed. Meanwhile the house is on fire and everybody inside it knows.

That man could make a decision. He could sit down and address it properly. He could get counselling, involve people he trusts, do the uncomfortable work of saying out loud what is actually happening. Or, if it has genuinely reached that point, he could leave.

But every one of those requires doing something hard.

Starting again. Explaining himself to people. Finding a single room. Rebuilding from a lower position at 40, in front of everybody who watched him rise.

So he stays, and he numbs, and the years pass. Not because staying is right, but because staying is easier than any of the alternatives on a given Tuesday.

That is the whole mechanism. It is not a marriage problem. It is an avoidance problem wearing a marriage as a costume.

The unmarried man with complete freedom

Now the other group.

No responsibilities. Nobody depending on them. Complete freedom, which is the thing every married man says he misses.

And look at where that freedom goes.

Betting. Pornography. Arguing with strangers online. Attacking people who are actually building something, while never once turning that same energy on themselves.

Then Saturday arrives and they are the loudest supporters of European football clubs, discussing tactics with bellies hanging over their belts, as though they are on the team. Full analysis of somebody else’s fitness. No analysis of their own.

And these same men demand respect.

Respect for what exactly? Respect is not a thing you are owed for existing. It is a response other people have to what you have built, carried or endured. When a man demands it without any of those, what he is actually asking for is to be excused.

I want to be clear that I am not mocking anybody’s circumstances. Life in Kenya is genuinely hard and some men are carrying real weight. What I am describing is different. It is the man with time, energy and no constraints spending all 3 on things that give nothing back.

Yes, our fathers failed us. Now what?

Many of our fathers did not do the job.

They were absent, or harsh, or they modelled exactly what we are now repeating without noticing. That is real, and it explains a great deal about why so many men reach 30 with no idea how to handle conflict, money or their own emotions.

But an explanation is not a life plan.

At some point you become an adult, and nobody is coming. No government programme. No empowerment fund. No man on a podium who is going to arrive and install discipline in you.

This is where I lose patience with a lot of the conversation about men. It stops at the explanation and treats the explanation as the destination. You can understand precisely why you are the way you are and still be 45 with nothing built, because understanding is not the same as changing.

Both things are true. You were shaped by things you did not choose, and you are the only person who can now do anything about it.

Hard things build men

Here is what I believe has actually gone wrong.

The absence of hard things.

Men are built by difficulty. Something that demands discipline, patience and sacrifice over a long period, where the reward is not immediate and quitting is always available. That is the mechanism that turns a boy into somebody who can be relied upon.

Previous generations had this whether they wanted it or not. Physical work. Long walks. Scarcity that forced planning. Nobody had to design difficulty into their life because life supplied it.

We removed most of it, which is progress, and we replaced it with nothing.

When there is nothing hard in a man’s life, he becomes soft in every direction. Not just physically. Soft in how he handles criticism, soft in how long he can stay with a problem, soft in what he is willing to feel without reaching for a distraction.

And that softness does not stay quiet. It turns into bitterness, because a man who is not building anything has to explain to himself why other people are, and the easiest explanation is that the world is unfair.

So introduce hard things deliberately

Since life no longer supplies difficulty automatically, you have to install it.

Train your body until it hurts. This is the most direct route because the feedback is honest. The weight does not care about your reasons. Either you did the work or you did not, and the results are visible to everybody within 6 months.

Learn something difficult that frustrates you for weeks. A skill where you are visibly bad at the start. The frustration is not a sign you chose wrong, it is the entire point. Most men have not been bad at something in public since school and have forgotten how to tolerate it.

Build a business that keeps you awake. Something with real consequences, where your decisions cost you money when they are wrong.

Fix the thing at home you have been avoiding for 3 years. The conversation you keep postponing. The debt you have not looked at. The relationship you let go quiet. This is the hardest item on the list and usually the most valuable, because avoidance in one area leaks into every other area.

None of it is glamorous. Nobody will applaud you for any of it in the first year. All of it builds you.

Decide tonight, give it 3 years

The reason most men never start is that they are waiting for a version of themselves who will find this easier. That man does not arrive. You begin as the person you currently are, tired and unconvinced, or you do not begin.

So start small. One hard thing, chosen deliberately, done consistently.

It starts with a decision, and then it is only time.

Decide tonight. Give it 3 years. You will not recognise yourself.

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— Elvis W.