Men, don’t grit your teeth and bear with it

By Daniel Francis

A few weeks back, my friends and I had the great pleasure of watching one of our good friends take the plunge and walk down the aisle with his now wife. In my group of close male friends, he was the first of us to get married but in the wider group of schoolfriends, he was not the first.

At the wedding, we all had a blast, but I noticed one of our friends was not in attendance. It troubled us all because we knew that the only way he would miss the wedding was if he was knocking on death’s door.

When we finally got onto him, he said he was a bit sick and that’s why he had to miss the wedding. We all assumed it was Covid related so we thought nothing of it.

The following week after the wedding, I just so happened to run into his mother and asked how he was doing with his sickness. What she said surprised me. She said that he was recovering well, and she could finally breathe a sigh of relief that he was not near death anymore.

I never knew his mother to be a dramatic woman, so this immediately raised an alarm in my head. His description of being a bit sick does not match his mother’s information of him almost dying.

I took action.

I gathered a few of the guys one evening and got that one friend to attend and we began drilling him for information out of concern. He had been internally bleeding for some weeks in small increments due to a small accident he had in the past and eventually almost died due to blood loss.

He had not gotten checked out although there were some glaring signs that he kept ignoring. He would feel weak during the day, see strange contusions on his skin and the biggest sign he ignored was blood in his urine.

We almost lost a friend due to his lack of care for himself and simply getting a check-up.

An extreme example I know but it underscores a major problem commonly experienced by men. This idea that we have to bear with our burdens through it all and the negative byproducts that come with that type of thinking.

For my friend, he bore his suffering unnecessarily and almost got himself killed. For other men, it can be as simple as not wanting to go to the doctor for routine checkups that could identify something that if caught early could save their lives.

As men, we are raised to be tough. We take this toughness to an extreme at times and it can cause unnecessary suffering.

Yes, we must strive for a level of strength and fortitude but let it not blind us to the obvious. The truth is if you were to perish before your time, it is not only you who would be affected but those tied to you. Your season-ending will have ripples on those around you.

As we grow older, it is easy to get sucked into negative habits of poor eating, lack of exercise, and unhealthy outlets for our stress just to name a few. All of these things add up over time. Do you think God only wants you in church on a Sunday to worship Him? No, He wants you to also take care of the body that He gave to you, His temple.

I urge all men to put their health at the forefront of their minds. Do it for yourself, for your family, for your friends, and God. In the unique experience of being a child of God, we are called to strive to be our best selves. Our best selves are in service to God, our families, our communities, and ourselves.

We sometimes miss that last part about service to ourselves with how life is set up. Take this article as a reminder to recalibrate your priorities especially if you find yourself gritting your teeth and bearing deep suffering. You deserve more than the suffering that you are allowing.

Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a Self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.

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