<center><h1>Where's Dad and Our Collective Lack of Agency</h1></center> During the pandemic you had a good chance of being bombarded with “morning routine” content. Self-help gurus beating their chests to the idea that you need to wake up at 6AM every day, get a workout in, dip into a cold shower, eat a hearty breakfast, tea instead of coffee, go for a walk as the sun rises, and never ever look at your phone. If you could do all this, every day, you’d have success. You’d end up living your best life. You’d become the person you always wanted to be. Even if that person would never wake up before 8AM on a normal day if they could. This phenomena was a small sample of the self-help industry. An industry where every few months a new must-have comes along. Each new thing promises it’ll bring you closer to your ideal self or at least the self that they’re telling you that you should be (rich, fit, and untethered). Few people ask themselves if any of this is what they want. I can’t deny everybody wants more money, but I know for a fact few have any idea how much would be enough. Or, what they do with that money once they got it. Booze and jet skis for me. The same goes for a physical fitness. Improving your overall health should be a natural inclination. You don’t want to grow old with aching bones and creaky joints. Yet you have dozens of ways you could meet those goals and none of them require 5% body fat and a six pack. A lot of them could even include pizza and donuts if you really wanted. I could go on and on and on about the things we’re told to do and the reasons we’re told to do them. I can’t, however, tell you **why** you’d want to do them. That’s a deeply personal question. Yet, so few are asking themselves “why”. They just follow along like lemmings off the cliff. This is the role of the father. He’d tell you how you should move around the world. He’d take what he learned from his life and the lessons from his ancestors and pass them down as best as he could. Unfortunately, most of our fathers were completely stunted in sharing their emotions or having discussions longer than a few minutes. When I was 10 I was bullied constantly. He taught me how to throw a punch. I gave a bloody nose and got a black eye. I was never bullied again. When I was 17 my dad hurled a single condom at the back of my head. That was my sex talk. Good man. I’m sure your father was just as insightful. When I talk to my friends they share similar experiences. Dutiful fathers who provided bread and discipline, but not much else. The patriarchy in our individual families was rarely involved in all the ways society suggested they could have been; leaders, role models, protectors, providers, disciplinarians, and the foundation of the family. At the same time half the fathers on television were bumbling fools whose wives kept the house running. Without direction young men end up adrift and there are so many who’d love to take advantage of them. These self-proclaimed father figures of the internet age don't want you to find your own path - they want you to follow theirs. Buy their course. Take their supplements. Join their mastermind group. They're not interested in your "why" - they're interested in your wallet. The tragic irony is that in trying to fill the void left by absent fathers, young men often surrender the very thing their fathers should have helped them develop: **agency**. The ability to think critically about what they want from life. The confidence to question authority figures, even (especially) the ones selling easy answers. The drive to pursue their passions. Real growth doesn't come from blindly following someone else's morning routine or life blueprint. It comes from the uncomfortable work of asking yourself hard questions. What actually matters to you? What kind of man do you want to be? What does success look like in your eyes, not through the lens of a YouTube guru? These aren't questions anyone else can answer for you. Not your father, not your role models, and certainly not some guy trying to sell you his "masculine optimization program." The path to genuine agency starts with accepting that there is no universal roadmap to manhood. That's the lesson our fathers should have taught us - not what to think, but how to think for ourselves.