The Mess and the Making of a Man

What if order and control are really just a myth?

There’s this myth that lingers in the masculine imagination—that real men are at their best when everything is in order.

The garage is clean. The schedule is dialed. The emotions are regulated. The plan is working.

But here’s the thing I’m learning, and maybe you are too: the mess is not an interruption to our manhood. The mess is where manhood is forged.

In This Mess Is a Place, I wrote about how I almost delayed launching We Can Stay Human because my house was in chaos. Half-finished walls. Insulation in the hallway. Meals eaten out of paper containers. It felt like I had to conquer the chaos before I could offer anything meaningful.

But then something cracked open.

What if the mess wasn’t a barrier to my becoming?

What if the mess was the place where my becoming could finally take root?

As men, we’re taught early that our value lies in our control. Fix it. Handle it. Keep it together. There’s no room for loose ends or trembling hands.

But life doesn’t work like that. Grief doesn’t wait for your schedule to clear. Transitions don’t ask for permission. The sacred doesn’t always show up in a disciplined body—it shows up in a broken one, reaching for something real.

This post is for the men who are in the middle of it.

Not the ones at the top of the mountain with bulletproof morning routines and six-pack abs.

The ones who are doing their best while carrying grief, uncertainty, emotional chaos, struggle, heartbreak, and renovation dust in their beard.

If you’re there, I want you to know: you’re not off-course. You’re in it.

And the question isn’t: When will I be back in control?

The question is: How do I stay human—stay connected, honest, rooted, tender—while everything in me wants to shut down, power through, or disappear?

That’s where manhood gets reimagined.

Not in domination, but in presence.

Not in achievement, but in attunement.

Not in rising above the mess, but in walking through it with courage and compassion.

And it’s why Manhood Reimagined exists—not to help you become a better performer, but to help you become a better human. The kind of man who can sit in the chaos without needing to fix it first. The kind of man who offers presence, not perfection.

So if you’re staring down your own unfinished hallway—physically, emotionally, relationally—I invite you to breathe.

Reclaim what’s yours.

Resist what’s stealing your soul.

Rebel against the shame that says you have to be ready before you’re real.

We don’t become men after the mess is cleaned up.

We become men in the mess.

Let it shape you.