Three Things to Start the New Year

When you get married, you join a new family, and if your families are as involved as ours are, you spend a lot of time juggling commitments so they all get their fair share of each weekend and holiday.  I'm sure that if I had any friends, I would have much the same problem, but luckily I avoid having any of those.

Conveniently, Chris' brother and my mother had the good sense to be born on the same day (somewhat less sensibly, they both chose a day incredibly close to Christmas, which makes gift giving twice in one month a massive pain).  As the only way to reasonably spend time with everyone, we had a joint birthday party with both families.

Be it known, it seriously helps that all nine of us get along.

Having both sets of sibling together also gave me the opportunity to implore my sister-in-law to start working on my brother to get himself together and get a girlfriend.  As this has been my life's work, at least I now have an associate who is not me to nudge my recalcitrant young adult brother onto the dating scene.  As my aspiration is matchmaking, I've been meanwhile encouraging my brother-in-law to pursue a romantic relationship as well, with subtle allusions to tighter tee shirts and a better haircut.  My brother could benefit from both of those as well...

What both boys - that is, men; they are 21 and 24 respectively - struggle with is feeling that they have nothing to offer a girlfriend type person.  I think they are also convinced that dating is too much work, and that there are no good girls left out there.  The latter is especially true of my brother-in-law, who is a veteran with very conservative political opinions in a very progressive state, and he is shy to boot.  I think they have both convinced themselves that dating women is just not going to work out very well, so they are preemptively throwing in the towel to save themselves the hassle.

In my mind, this comes down to low self-esteem.  Dating is a lot of work, and maintaining a relationship takes effort, but for the right girl and the right reasons, the work is worth it.  But that fact will be invisible to anyone who does not view themselves as "good enough" first.  The insurmountability of theoretically endless rejections will tower over the person who does not believe that he himself is worth it.

This problem faces all of us, in one aspect of our lives or another.  For me, it was very much work-related: I know I was stalling in making my cold-call pitches because I didn't think I was "ready." This is immediately prescient as it pertains to my family, but this is really good advice for anyone, at any time in your life.

But how to build confidence?

For building a sense of worthiness for the new year, here was my advice to the young men in my life, and to anyone out there struggling at the starting block.

Get three hobbies.

#1: A Physical hobby.
This can be going to the gym, if you are dedicated, methodical and goal-oriented about it.  Otherwise, find a sport.  Something that makes you move your body, and requires practice to get better.

#2: An Intellectual hobby.
Apply yourself to learning something, reading something, or writing something.  Take a coding course, learn a new language, or read the entire bible.  Something that interests you, and stimulates your mind.

#3: A Productive hobby.
Do something that makes something.  Take up woodworking, macrame, learn to bake bread.  Making something of value - even if you could have much more easily bought it at the store - gives you a real object to point to when someone asks, "So what have you been up to?"

Practice some skills that allow you to measure your achievement as you get better.  You'll impress yourself first, as you improve toward mastery.  Having practical skills makes you useful, having diverse skills makes you interesting.  Having hobbies keeps you busy, and pursuing those hobbies periodically puts you in contact with other humans (sometimes, even including the opposite gender!).

In a nutshell, taking up or rededicating yourself to three hobbies - in addition to the basic functions of school or work - will help to make you a well-rounded person.  Being well-rounded will ground you in who you are and what you like.  By focusing on building yourself and your confidence, when you do go into the social work, meeting the right someone will be a lot less intimidating.

Rejection sucks, but it sucks a little less when you know that fundamentally, you're a good person no matter what happens.  And a person who has that kind of self assurance is more attractive to everyone, including potential dates.  It's a multiplier effect, in which you are more likely to take the risk, and the risk is also more likely to pay off.

Knowing these guys, they probably won't take my advice until they have figured out this lesson for themselves.  But if they take on even one more hobby in 2017, I'll count it as a win.

I just want everyone to have someone to eat ice cream with.
Or gelato.  Whatever you're into.