Hard Times Create Strong Men: Understanding (and Taking Advantage of) the Eternal Cycle

In life, there’s only a few things guaranteed to you, especially as a man.

What are some of them?

One of them is that you will eventually die. No matter who you are, that is inevitable.

Another one of them is that you will have to give some of your money to the government which rules over where you live.

Here’s another one:

You will go through varying degrees of pain, struggle, heartache, etc. AKA “hard times”.

Many people see “hard times” as a “bad” thing but that’s the wrong mindset and approach to take.

If you want to maximize your success and most of all — happiness in this world as a man, you need to know why “hard times create strong men” and why you should avoid things that weaken you at all costs.

This article will go into depth on why this is so and it will also touch on:

• The general cycle of life
• How modern society keeps you frustrated, lazy, and most of all — weak
• Why adversity is key to masculine development
• How to use this mindset to your advantage

With that, let’s get stronger.

The Only Constant In Life and the Never-ending Cycle

“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.“ – G. Michael Hopf, Those Who Remain

In addition to the two main guarantees of death and taxes that I briefly touched on above, there is another guarantee, or “constant” rather — and that is change.

Life is constantly changing.

You are not the same person you were last year, your friends are not the same people you met in college, and the world is not the same place it was a week ago.

This is simply because life is a cascading ocean of cause and effect relationships.

Therefore, this cause and effect relationship creates an invisible and inevitable cycle of change in different areas.

The changing landscape of the world (cause) naturally affects its inhabitants, which is in this context — men (effect).

If we take the quote at the beginning of this section at face value, we can see how this cycle starts to present itself.

Hard times create strong men

The world in it’s untrammeled state is a very hard place to live in. Nature is neutral, some would even say “cruel”. It’s safe to say that the earliest humans had it rough.

In order to survive and even thrive, our ancestors had to develop fortitude and extreme mental toughness.

“Survival of the fittest” was not a cliché saying, you had to be strong in various ways (physically, mentally, emotionally) or else you just wouldn’t make it.

Strong men create good times

As time passed, humans developed new ways of productivity via the collected knowledge passed down from their ancestors.

Discoveries such as fire and the wheel were pieces of future inventions such as ovens and eventually, carts. These inventions made life much easier and created what we know as “society” or “civilization”.

This then opened up the space for us to get out of survival mode, to enjoy leisure, and think about things such as “why am I here?” and “what are those bright lights in the night sky?”.

This paved the way for things such as philosophy, science, and many other things that make life better for us.

Good times create weak men

We are currently right now in the era of good times, reaping the rewards of hard work from people of past days.

Despite what you might hear on the news, the current version of the world is the best it’s ever been.

Worldwide poverty is decreasing. More people are gaining access to the life changing technology of the Internet. You are more likely to get struck by lightening than die from a cold or some other benign infection. There hasn’t been a world war in close to 80 years.

Life is relatively good. Not perfect, but good.

Since many of us are not in stark survival mode, this gives people the license to “let it all hang out” and “take it easy”, never strengthening their faculties for survival.

Weak men create hard times

It’s no surprise that if you stop doing the things that made you successful in the first place, you will fall out of success in due time.

Think about the founders of a nation-state such as India, a country such as America, or even Rome.

What type of bravery did the signers of the Declaration of Independence need to break away from England, committing treason in the process?

What type of mental endurance did the Vikings need to sustain themselves for thousands of years in the cold Arctic climate and create a way of life that lasted to this very day?

Think about those and ask yourself:

Does the average man in today’s world have the capacities required to keep the creeping entropy of life at bay?

I won’t answer that for you but I will say that today’s society has a unique effect on it’s citizens than any time in the past.

Understanding the “Loosening Effect” of Modern Society

“People wish to be settled; only so far as they are unsettled, is there any hope for them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Since our world’s the best it’s ever been and since many of us in the developed world are not in stark survival, at every corner modern society will encourage you to “loosen up”.

Want to change your emotional state? Take “this“.

Don’t have the money for that flat screen TV you wanted (WANT, not need)? Use a credit card.

Do girls scare you? Don’t worry, here’s a site with thousands of girls more attractive than the ones you see in your everyday life.

Want a beach body in 60 days? Try this new “diet”, no time commitment.

Don’t have time to dig deep into a book? Here’s some Sparknotes. Quick and easy for ya.

I could go on all day, but simply put: modern society is designed to create addictive instant gratification that erodes your character and ability to do things for yourself.

If that sounds “damning”, it’s not supposed to be. That’s just the way it is.

Almost no one other than your parents (and even they might not have done so) will tell you to be self-reliant and strive towards all that you’re capable of.

Society is set up to get you to be dependent on other people, things, and institutions to tell you who you are, how you should act, and how you should be.

In other words, you are encouraged you to become a weak man.

You are encouraged to tuck your tail and run the other way when challenge, adversity, or anything “hard” comes your way.

And as stated before — life will come hard and it will come fast. If all you can do is run away, you are fucked.

And that’s a big problem.

Adversity and Masculine Development

Unadorned suffering is the bedmate of masculine growth. Only by staying intimate with your personal suffering can you feel through it to its source. – David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man

Undergirding all of this is one concept that is very important to understand.

That is…you don’t automatically become a man.

This is something a lot of people don’t know and it gets them in deep shit down the line.

Just because you are born a male and grow up to become 18, 25, 30, 40, 50, whatever…you don’t just become a man. A man needs to be created. See below:

That a “man” is someone that has to be created. You just don’t grow up and automatically become a man.

This is why many eons ago, people would send their young men out into the world as a rite of passage. If you came back in one piece, you had the honor of being called “a man”.

— Unstoppable Rise ⚡ (@unstoprise) February 15, 2022

Being a “man” is something that’s created in the forge of life. You can’t buy it. You can’t snort it. You can’t pop it. It’s a transformation process. It’s a birth and a death. One part of you dies and is a sacrifice to become someone “different”.

— Unstoppable Rise ⚡ (@unstoprise) February 15, 2022

People of the past knew this, so they would send their young men out into the world on a “rite of passage”, basically an initiation to become a man.

The unstated question was:

Do you have enough guts, enough resourcefulness, enough fortitude, enough BALLS to be sent out into the world away from your community, complete your “vision quest” and come back in one piece?

If you said “yes, I can” in the form of going out into the world and coming back, then you were accepted and welcomed into the community as “a man”.

This rite of passage would usually happen during puberty — when testosterone is starting to be produced in large enough quantities to change a male physically and psychologically.

Rites of passage were collective community attempts to funnel unguided masculinity into a channel where a boy becomes a man who can provide for and protect others who may not have been able to do so themselves (small children, elderly individuals, and even women to a certain extent).

And as civilization grew, rites of passage disappeared (as they naturally do). As a result, there is a large psychological hole that exists because there is no formal rite of passage for men OR women.

And no surprise, you have many men who:

• Crumple at the first sign of pressure
• Cannot talk to women in a romantic or platonic sense
• Only know how to “solve” problems with fists and f-bombs
• Are unable to navigate the world with skill and finesse

This is because many people (men, in this case) did not grow up mentally because there was no real “bridge” to cross from child to adult.

As a result, you get weakness and instability in varying degrees because there was no initiation for many men to tell them:

“You are a man now. This is how a man takes care of business.”

How to Use the Mindset of “Hard Times Make Strong Men”

While this may seem like a sad state of affairs, there’s no reason you need for this to affect you.

There are several keys to getting this mindset to work for you. Here’s some of my insights and some ways to move forward.

1. Seek Out Challenge

One of the main themes of Unstoppable Rise is to use difficult things as a way to ascend to higher levels of understanding, success, accomplishment, and self-actualization.

Therefore, if you’re reading this you probably have a bit more self-awareness and motivation than the average guy.

So, I want you to think difficulty as a training ground for developing resilience and mental toughness. This could be:

• Taking cold showers’
• Waking early and going to the gym
• Deciding to save 50% or more of your income and living off the rest
• Working 2 jobs
• Reading challenging books
• Public speaking

Challenge comes in various guises. The main point is to pick something that pushes you out of your comfort zone and develops good qualities in you.

This is especially important in your 20s, when you’re very raw and don’t really have too many skills yet.

When you’re used to challenging yourself, the rest of your life will become so much easier in comparison.

2. Avoid Weakness

As I said before, things that weaken you are everywhere. In fact, if you follow a “normal” life in society, you will just naturally become weak and unable to do many things of value.

With that being said, you need to make an effort to lessen, avoid, or completely eliminate things which make you soft and fragile in a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual sense.

I could come up with a whole laundry list as to what these things are, but as a rule you should be wary of anything that wastes your time, energy, and money with little or nothing in return.

There are many things that are more ambiguous, but this is where it helps to project in the future and ask:

If I continue to engage in this activity or behavior on a frequent basis for the next 5 years, what will my life look like?

That should give you some sort of clue.

3. Increase Self-Discipline

Without self-discipline, a person is completely lost. Self-discipline is the hedge against weakness and being used as a puppet in an agenda you had no knowledge of or even any passion for.

If you want to get stronger, be a better man, and become someone who can use hard times to their advantage, you must develop self-discipline. It is a non-negotiable.

Without it, you are little more than just a beast who can walk on two legs. With self-discipline, however, the world is your oyster.

For more information on how you yourself can build self-discipline, check out How to Develop Rock Solid Self-Discipline.

4. Prepare

Since the cycle of cause and effect is always moving and change is constant, you will inevitably run into times that are “less favorable” than what you’re used to.

Maybe money’s a bit tighter this month. Maybe a loved one is sick. Maybe you’ve been injured and you’re trying to get back to health. Whatever the case may be, you need to prepare for hard times.

This is why you go through the pain of putting yourself through difficult and challenging situations so you can be prepared for hard times when they come.

One example is the recent pandemic. Many people were absolutely blindsided from a financial standpoint. They didn’t have money stashed away, so when they were laid off or furloughed, they and their family felt the pain.

This why you get ready for lean times in times of plenty so you don’t have to worry about things like that and instead turn your attention to more important matters.

Conclusion + Wrapping Up

In life, there’s only a few things guaranteed to us and one of these is that hard times will happen to us. While we are not powerless to lessen or even completely eliminate their effects on us, it is something that we have to be aware of and develop mental toughness and self-discipline.

The first world in it’s current state is one where people don’t have to develop any of these qualities at all and it’s quite possible to live a life where you’re pushed by the winds of change rather than consciously direct it.

In order to do that, you need to challenge yourself, avoid becoming weaker, develop self-discipline, and prepare. This will give you the best chance to establish yourself in a rapidly changing and fluctuating world.

Have you experienced hard times? If so, what did you learn from it and how did you use your experience to better your life? Let us know in the comments.