A boy does what feels good, a man does what’s right

It sounds good, and makes a good catch phrase but what do we mean by “A boy does what feels good, and a man does what’s right”? When working on developing a process to initiate boys into manhood, I knew I needed to be able to differentiate the two with something other than simply age. Our culture is under the impression that turning 18 makes a boy a man, or maybe it’s turning 21, or is it 25? In our culture, each of these birthdays come with opportunities to do something that you were previously unable to do. But does that make someone a man? What is a man; what are the distinguishing marks of a man?

That’s what I wanted to clarify in order to better explain the need for initiation. In the process of deciphering this difference, this phrase is what I landed on. But does it mean? Let’s break it into its two main parts. “A boy does what feels good”. Simply put, it refers to a young boy’s inability to control his impulses. Boys do what feels right in the moment. They are often a slave to their inner urges. They usually don’t think things through or consider the long-term effects of their actions on themselves or others. 

I have a friend whose son, at around the age of 12, took a pocket knife to the dresser in his room. He carved his name into the front of it in large letters. When asked what he was thinking that he thought this would be ok to do, he replied, “I don’t know”. It is boys who put their own desires at the forefront of their decision making.

“A man does what’s right”. A man, rather than being a slave to his impulses, controls his them. A well-known former Navy Seal turned business team advisor, author, and podcaster, Jocko Willink, coined the phrase, “discipline equals freedom”. This was his way of defining the key characteristic of being an adult in general, but it applies in some way more specifically to men. Though women also have a need to control their impulses, women process information at a more emotional level, meaning they are not designed to set aside their emotion and think on a strictly logical level. The ability to set aside emotion and view things in a strictly logical manner is specifically male and is the mark of a man. This is the reason men are expected to be stoic and many jokes are made about men not crying, with limited exceptions. A man is able to set aside his own desires, and when necessary, he is able to set aside his own emotions and do what needs to be done despite hardships, difficulty, loneliness, or frustration. Men recognize a need and do what is necessary to meet that need. They do what is right even when it’s not an easy thing to do. Men are designed to set aside their own wellbeing to serve, provide, and protect those around them. They run into combat, they do the “dirty jobs”, and they keep the infrastructure of society functioning.

Without being initiated and called to step up to this new level of responsibility of manhood, boys remain boys. They don’t step up, they don’t set aside their own desires, and they become soft, self-centered boys in a man’s body.

Now the question may be, how do we turn boys into me? How do we call the boys of our culture into manhood and responsibility? How do we get away from man-sized boys, who fail to step up to marriage, fatherhood, and positive contributors to society. Studies show that the male brain needs to be guided, it needs a man to show a boy how to be a man and, when he is ready, the boy needs a man to call and initiate him into manhood. Not only do studies of the male brain demonstrate this, so do societal norms throughout history. Essentially ever culture throughout history has had some initiation process for its men. From the better-known Spartan Agoge, made famous by the movie 300, to lesser-known rites. Most of these were done at puberty as up until more recent years, all cultures recognized puberty as when children became adults. These rites involved challenges, military inscription, or sometimes just a party, example, the Jewish Bar mitz·vah which even today, initiates a boy into full membership in public worship as a man of the community. In most societies, once a boy went through the appropriate initiation at puberty they were considered a man, were treated like a man by the community, and were expected to live out the responsibilities that came with that.

This initiation is the mission of Operation Lolek and the preparation for this initiation teaches boys to what it means to “do what’s right” based on God’s design and purpose for masculinity and men.