In There Will Be Blood, the central tension unfolds between Eli Sunday, a preacher who controls the land, and Daniel Plainview, an oilman who needs access to it. One of the most powerful moments in the film is when Eli pressures Daniel into confessing:

“I have abandoned my child! I have abandoned my child! I have abandoned my boy!”

The scene is heavy, but also laced with irony to make a point. The boy isn’t biologically Plainview’s son. He adopted him to play the part of a “family man,” using him to close deals and mask his own emotional and moral void. Plainview’s “son” came into his tutelage due to Plainview's decisions. He killed his father and then cost his “son’s” hearing. Plainview is deeply insecure with his uncontrollable desire to win in an assumed zero-sum world. He views every relationship as competitive. Plainview’s confession is both a lie and the truth. That’s the point. It depends on which narrative you choose.

At the same time, Eli isn’t some noble man of God. He uses religion as theater, a tool to control and to feel significant, not to heal and redeem. Sunday’s attempts to humble himself before Daniel aren’t pastoral; they’re a power move. Sunday wants Plainview to feel small and inferior. Sunday knows Plainview needs his and his family’s approval. Sunday hides his own insecurity behind the pulpit and petty games. He masks his striving for significance as he desperately wants his father's approval, not God’s, built upon an unhealthy jealousy of siblings. He may preach humility and Christianity, but he’s driven by the same competitive desires as Plainview: power, validation, and significance.

Both men are locked in the same trap: inferiority masked by superiority, control and power masked by righteousness and humility. Trauma drives their personal narratives, and they excuse their behavior with lies about life.

In the first part of my trauma series on Adler, I provided a background on Adler and the current dominant Freudian concepts. I introduced their core ideas and set the stage for the next two posts in my three-part series.

Now, we go deeper into Adler’s work and focus on the essential first major dividing line: between you and everyone else. His first and foremost concern was the individual, not the collective and the world out there. His entire practice revolved around the person sitting before him and their story, not society, structures, or systems.

For Adler, reality is the choices you make, the power you give others, and the responsibility you take or avoid. There is no such thing as a shared fate or determined history, only the meaning we assign to our experiences and how we move through them.

This is where the “trauma-ists” argument breaks down. We operate today like trauma is a fixed external force, something done to us or something baked into who we are. Traumaists point the finger at history, a non-agentic force to which we all succumb. Woe is me.

But Adler stops our modern culture in its tracks. He argues that trauma isn’t what happens to you. It’s how you relate to it. You are not a victim of reality, but you’re the author of your interpretation. Your social connections and how you view your history determine that interpretation. In Adlerian psychology, everything starts and ends with relationships and social connections. How you see yourself and how you see others is directly connected; whether you choose to grow or stay stuck is in your excuse narrative.

Every Problem is an Interpersonal Relationship Problem

“Every psychological problem we experience, be it anxiety, depression, inferiority, anger, or avoidance, can be traced to difficulties in how we relate to other people.”
— Alfred Adler

“All problems are interpersonal relationship problems... and most people use life lies to escape them.”
— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

This is one of Adler’s most disruptive ideas. At first glance, it feels too simplistic and shallow. After you sit in his claim and ponder it, his idea begins to hold and take root.

He believed that every psychological struggle, no matter how private or internal it appears, is at its core relational. That all our personal dysfunctions, anxiety, depression, shame, procrastination, can be traced back to how we relate to others and how we believe others relate to us.

Adler’s view of human nature wasn’t abstract. He saw people as fundamentally social, not isolated. We’re built for belonging, recognition, and contribution. Our identity is formed in relationships with others (a blend of family, community, and society), and we falsely believe we are more individualistic than we are. Our culture presses “we are all a wallflower,” and then, we get blindsided by mimetic narratives that provide addictive external meaning and purpose. Even the emotions we label “private” come from how we imagine we’ll be judged, accepted, or rejected. All of those are statements of how we relate to others. To Adler, there’s no such thing as a personal problem. All problems are social problems in disguise.

Here’s what Adler would say to common idioms we hear today:

• “I have social anxiety.” → You fear judgment or rejection.

• “I’m not confident.” → You feel like you don’t measure up.

• “I’m depressed.” → You feel disconnected, unseen, or useless.

• “I procrastinate.” → You fear failure and disappointing others.

• “I feel worthless.” → You feel like no one needs you.

Adler called the modern tendency to manage other people’s expectations and perceptions a form of self-deception. It’s how we cope, but it’s not how we grow. Instead of managing expectations, he proposed something different: manage your integrity. Don’t live to avoid being disliked; live with clarity, honesty, and direction.

He warned that we often confuse our responsibilities with those of other people. We spend energy fixing their reactions, dodging criticism, or performing for their approval. Adler drew a hard line: focus on your tasks and your life. Let others focus on theirs. This is the root of agency: knowing what’s yours and letting go of what isn’t. Modern culture considers agency and goals individualistic, but they are fundamentally interpersonal and relational concerns. People don’t have either because of how they view themselves in the context of others, not based on the failures of a solitary human.

At the center of Adler’s thought is a radical, often misunderstood term: Gemeinschaftsgefühl, translated as “social interest.” It’s the belief that a meaningful life is rooted in cooperation and contribution. It is the “feeling” of belonging to specific individuals and the broader community. The cure for self-obsession, for inferiority, even for depression, is not more self-analysis but a reorientation toward service, toward connection. Mental health isn’t a solo pursuit. It’s a byproduct of healthy relationships. Adler believed this communal feeling (aka social interest) is essential for personal development and mental health.

“Social interest is the only gauge to be used in judging the worth of a person. As the barometer of normality, it is the standard to be used in determining the usefulness of a life.”

— Alfred Adler

Without that sense of cooperation, connection, and meaning, psychoses and neuroses begin to develop. The root of symptomatic personality defects is the web of interpersonal problems frayed or avoided entirely.

Adler broke decisively from Freud on the root of neurosis and psychosis. Freud emphasized internal conflict, unconscious drives, repression, and the weight of personal history. Adler brought the focus to the present. He believed identity is not formed in isolation, but through individual sovereignty in relationship with others. We understand ourselves not in the absence of people, but in proximity to them. Our pathologies aren’t just personal stories we tell ourselves. They’re relational in nature and cannot be devoid of other humans who contribute to your life. Freud saw identity as shaped by internal forces; Adler saw it as shaped by the pursuit of communal goals, meaning, and contribution.

"The ego is not master in its own house."

— Sigmund Freud

Our modern obsession with self-discovery and hyper-individual meaning-making is, to Adler, a life lie. The idea that the individual is the sole architect of their reality is a fundamentally Freudian myth. Adler would question how much you truly know about yourself apart from the community, relationships, and responsibilities that make you who you are; however, we’ve built an entire culture around the idea that the self is the answer. Popular therapy and self-help teach solutions are found by excavating the inner world, and if other people enter the room, it’s only to blame them, not to reconcile and to restore.

Adler insisted that social interest must be cultivated to overcome pathology. This isn’t optional but essential. If all problems are interpersonal, then healing begins with the courage to re-enter reality and relationships as they are. Developing a connection with others creates social interest. As you establish and develop social interest, you stop hiding behind pain, superiority, and fictional narratives designed to avoid responsibility. You stop playing the victim, the martyr, or the misunderstood “genius”.

Being free comes from community and showing up for others. Healing is in contribution and not self-protection from feelings of inferiority. Inferiority isn’t a flaw to be psychoanalyzed to death. It’s the baseline of being human; what matters is how you respond and what you do with it.

"Seek Unity and you will find neither Unity nor Truth. Seek the light of truth, and you will find Unity and Truth."

— C.S. Lewis

Compensation, from Inferiority to Superiority

"Everyone (...) has a feeling of inferiority. But the feeling of inferiority is not a disease; it is rather a stimulant to healthy, normal striving and development. It becomes a pathological condition only when the sense of inadequacy overwhelms the individual and, far from stimulating them to useful activity, makes them depressed and incapable of development."

— Alfred Adler

"A superiority complex is a defense mechanism that develops over time to help a person cope with feelings of inferiority."

— Alfred Adler

“A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self."

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

"If one really has confidence in oneself, one doesn’t feel the need to boast. It’s because one’s feeling of inferiority is strong that one boasts."

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

Everyone feels inadequate. It is a universal truth and an inescapable part of the human condition. But that feeling isn’t a flaw. In Adlerian psychology, it’s fuel for change and feelings of inferiority are the inner signal that something better is possible if we’re willing to grow and to have courage. Inferiority isn’t the problem; the problem is avoiding it.

Adler’s genius was naming what most people hide. He believed that inferiority is a normal and necessary part of life. It happens to everyone. What matters is how we respond to it. Do we grow from it, or escape it? That’s where compensation comes in. If you avoid feelings of inferiority, you prevent its benefits. Going through the pain is the only way you become more of who you weren’t to be.

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

In Adler’s individual psychology, compensation is the mechanism we use to confront or avoid our perceived shortcomings. There are two paths: one is healthy and the other pathological. In the healthy version, we acknowledge what’s lacking and move toward strength and improvement. In the unhealthy version, we deny what’s real and build a persona to mask it, either by shrinking ourselves (inferiority complex) or inflating ourselves (superiority complex). We distort our character, disposition, and relationships when we deny or overreact to impediments, as seen with Plainview and Sunday. Both wanted to mask their true selves but took two superficially opposite paths. Both are rooted in the same psychological tendency. This deflection and distraction inhibit growth and stem resiliency.

Freud first introduced the “compensation” concept, framing it as a defense mechanism. In his view, people unconsciously use compensation to protect the ego (Freudian ego) from anxiety or unresolved internal conflict. If someone feels inadequate in one area, they might overperform in another to cover it up. Freud’s interpretation of inferiority was rooted in his broader framework, everything goes back to childhood and the unconscious mind running the show.

Jung built on Freud’s ideas but took them in a different direction. He saw compensation not just as an internal defense mechanism, but as a balance. When the conscious mind fixates too heavily on one trait or identity, the unconscious supplies the opposite. For Jung, compensation wasn’t about avoiding discomfort but about how the psyche kept itself whole and bartered between competing ideas.

"The sense of inferiority has strong erotic roots."

— Sigmund Freud

Where Freud introduced the notion of compensation, Adler introduced the inferiority complex. The inferiority complex essentially says, “I can’t change.” It thrives in self-doubt, excuses, and powerlessness. The superiority complex essentially says, “I don’t need to change.” It thrives in performance, arrogance, and control. Both are illusions, and both are ways of avoiding responsibility and resilience. They are two faces of the same defense mechanism. The root is the same: fear.

The overarching goal of Adlerian psychotherapy is to help the patient overcome feelings of inferiority by taking action. Courage to strive is the courage to fail. Courage to pursue a better version of yourself, not for validation or superiority, but to contribute, to live a life that matters beyond your own insecurity. Adler argued that when we stop striving, we start compensating. If you can’t be strong, you act weak. If you can’t be honest, you act powerful. Neither one leads to freedom. At best, they lead to personality distortion, at worst, to deep neurosis.

At the core, Adler argued that no person can live indefinitely in a state of feeling less than. Eventually, they will adopt tactics to escape that feeling, whether it’s reframing life through trauma narratives, blaming external systems, or clinging to pride and performance. These become strategies to avoid taking ownership, being seen, being known, and ultimately, avoiding change.

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Feelings of inferiority become a trap when they're disconnected from purpose and others. When directed outward, toward meaning, contribution, and something larger, it becomes a launchpad for transformation. Ultimately, everyone strives for superiority, and it’s just a matter of what kind. Real strength isn’t about hiding your weakness. It’s about using it to become useful. Inferiority is an invitation, a teacher, a guidepost to become better.

You can see these unhealthy patterns everywhere now. An endless stream of campaigns led by self-proclaimed “victims” demanding that the world compensate them for their supposed damage. These movements are built on emphatic slogans meant to shield the traumatized from further harm, but curiously, there’s rarely a clear aggressor. The villain is always vague, abstract, and conveniently unspecific. That’s by design. It gives the “traumatized” free rein to craft any solution they want, no matter how unreasonable, and demand the world bend to it.

It is a shared inferiority complex turned into a power play. Instead of facing and growing through the perfectly normal and human feeling of inferiority, it gets radicalized and weaponized, utilized to manipulate the goodwill of others. It’s our contemporary culture’s mask for insecurity and cowardice. Until the victim economy finds the courage to drop the blame game and own up to its problems being its own, it will keep turning its sights on the next convenient target to shift fault and therefore, never having to change. In its wake is a steady cycle of innocent sacrifices given to their altar, a narcissistic demi-god of self-absorbed despair. The cycle won’t stop with validation, they so desperately seek. It ends with ownership. If only they could believe they’d be okay, no matter what happened. It’s the narrative they have chosen.

How you see your inferiority and how you respond is determined by the narratives you tell yourself. Our mental models and relationships form these. Whether they are fiction or non-fiction isn’t as important as how they guide you through life.

Fictional Finalism

“A man’s worth lies not in what he is, but in what he aspires to be.”

— Alfred Adler

“The truth is often less important than the usefulness of the fiction in moving us toward a goal.”

— Alfred Adler

“People fabricate anger. They create it themselves. And it is a lie.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

Adler’s theory of fictional finalism is one of the most profound yet misunderstood contributions to psychology. He believed people aren’t primarily driven by the past, but by the future, specifically the futures they imagine. These imagined outcomes are our “finalisms”. They become the silent architects of our behavior. They may not be rational, or even attainable, but they serve as internal compasses.

These finalisms are fictions, not because they’re lies, but because they’re constructs. These finalisms are stories we create to make sense of ourselves, the world, and our place in it. We don’t always know where they come from, yet we choose to live by them anyway.

Here are some examples of finalisms you have probably heard.

• “I must be better to be loved.”

• “If I have this profession, I’ll have meaning.”

• “If I work hard enough, I will be worthwhile.”

• “Life should be fair.”

• “My spouse is my best friend.”

These beliefs aren’t rooted in objective truth. Instead, they’re narratives, emotional heuristics, and internalized mantras. Most of them form early, so we mistake them for fact. They are not facts but are built and constructed as internal dialogues. No one enforces fairness in life or defines worth, yet people regurgitate these finalisms. Once built, finalisms guide the trajectory of our lives.

Adler borrowed the foundational concept of finalisms from philosopher Hans Vaihinger. He observed that humans regularly operate on assumptions they know aren’t entirely true or accurate but are still helpful. These “fictions,” as he called them, help us function in a world that is too complex to navigate with certainty. It’s not deception but mental pragmatism.

“An idea may be theoretically false, but still practically useful."

— Hans Vaihinger

Adler applied this to the psyche. We don’t just function with mental fictions, but we live by them. These fictional finalisms become internal blueprints for how we act, how we relate to others, and what we believe is possible. Whether or not they are “true” isn’t the point. Their usefulness in directing our behavior is the point.

This was a direct break from Freud. While Freud taught that “we are what we’ve been,” Adler argued that “we are what we aim for.” Freud saw behavior as backward-looking, driven by repressed memories, childhood traumas, and unconscious conflict. Adler saw behavior as forward-facing, shaped by goals, purpose, and our chosen response to life.

“We are what we are because we have been what we have been.”

— Sigmund Freud

You can see the difference everywhere in modern life. People will say, “Because my parents did X, I am this way.” Or, “I experienced Y, so I can’t change.” This is deterministic etiology, backward-looking forward causality. It removes agency from the present. Adler rejected this passivity. He argued that the problem is not what happened, but what narrative you're still using to explain it.

And those narratives? They’re often false. Not because nothing happened, but because we interpret those events as being shaped by what we want to believe, what we want to avoid, and what makes us feel safest.

Adler didn’t see these stories as inherently bad. He saw them as directional and informational. They can pull us forward or they can keep us stuck. His goal in therapy was to expose the fiction, question it, and align it with reality. Once you know the script running your life, you can ask the only question that matters: Is this helping me become who I want to be?

He called the most destructive internal fictions “life lies.” These are the stories we tell to avoid change, to deflect responsibility, and to shield ourselves from discomfort. Life lies always looks like the truth in the moment, but they don’t move us forward. They keep us orbiting the same cycle and hurt ourselves and those around us.

Here are a few familiar life lies:

• “I can’t do that because of my past.”

• “No one gets me, so why bother?”

• “If I had different parents, a different job, a different body…”

• “I’m just not wired for that.”

• “Life is unfair, so what’s the point?”

These beliefs become frameworks of avoidance. They trade agency for excuses. They turn wounds into worldviews. They feel protective, but they are maladaptive and cost us personal growth.

While Freud emphasized past experiences and unconscious drives, Adler's invitation was not to eliminate fictions, but to know them and to choose better ones. Adler wanted us to write better stories for ourselves. Freud wanted us to discover the pre-written story in our repressed memories and internal conflicts. To Adler, we must orient ourselves toward values and histories that call us upward to strive and become useful. These internal narratives are powerful not because of their veracity, but because they pragmatically shape our lives today.

“Man proceeds in the fog,” Milan Kundera once wrote. “But when he looks back to judge people of the past, he sees no fog on their path.” That’s the illusion. We forget that we are living forward, not backward. We’re navigating life through stories we often haven’t questioned, and the most straightforward path forward isn’t behind us. It’s in “fiction” that we choose to believe next.

Choose Your Lifestyle

“Everything can also be different... and if the individual lives according to a certain guiding line, everything must be as it is.”

— Alfred Adler

“You are not controlled by emotion. You control it.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

Adler’s “style of life” concept is foundational to his theory of Individual Psychology. In modern terms, we’d call it your operating system or, in a simplified term, “lifestyle”. To Adler, lifestyle is not about morning routines, habits, or aesthetic preferences. Lifestyle is the deeply embedded strategy we use (usually unconsciously) to navigate life, relationships, and challenges. Each of us adopts a unique pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving in response to early life experiences, feelings of inferiority, and our internalized goals.

This style begins in childhood and is influenced by how we perceive our place in the world, within our family, community, and social settings. Critically, Adler emphasized that lifestyle is not fixed. We create our lifestyle through interpretation and choice, which means we can revise it. Put another way, you’re not a slave to your wiring or wounds; you’re the architect of your adaptation.

Adler diverged sharply from Freud’s obsession with typologies and trauma-based determinism. While Freud saw people as passengers locked into psychosexual stages and unconscious drives, Adler believed in creative power. He believed in agency, uber alles. To him, personality was not an identity but a semi-coping strategy. It is an individualized strategy of how you learned to strive for superiority and avoid perceived failure. It’s a chosen way of living, not a deterministic prison.

You can see Freud’s fingerprints all over today’s obsession with personality labels and identity categories. The endless buffet of acronyms, tests, and trauma narratives tries to frame identity as a static result of the past. "I am X because Y happened." Adler would be opposed to today’s lexicon of identity linguistics. You are not your trauma. You are not your test result. You're not even your culture, class, or clinical label. You’re a human being making choices, some conscious and some not, about how to respond to the world around you.

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Yes, I love personality tests like every other normal human being. Enneagram? I am a 3w4. Culture Index? Philosopher. Hogwarts? Slytherin, obviously. Out with muggles! But those things are just fun flavors, not foundation or real meat. Personality tests describe tendencies of your current lifestyle and narratives, but that is not the core truth. Whether you’re “shy,” “agreeable,” or “a people-pleaser,” Adler would say you are just picking these behaviors to get your needs met and to align with your spoken and unspoken goals. Personality traits should be viewed more as tools, not descriptors. Tools can be swapped out.

Adler believed these personality behaviors are shaped by early life experience, feelings of inferiority, and the imagined goals we build for ourselves to feel significant. Together, these form your “guiding line,“ an internal compass that tells you how to survive and succeed. If your compass is off, so is your trajectory.

Adlerian therapy made its mark by focusing on tomorrow, not yesterday. Individual Adlerian psychology aims not to wallow in your childhood or decode every memory. The goal is to reveal your guiding line (your internal compass) and ask a better question: “Is this actually working?” If not, rewrite it. You don’t need to fix your past. You need to clarify your aim and reorient your behavior toward something better.

The great lie of modern psychology is that your history defines you. You are not who you’ve been. You are always free to reorient toward who you want to be and you are becoming. The key is courage; the tool is choice. The path forward begins when you stop saying, “This is just who I am,” and start asking, “Who do I want to be?”

Trauma Is Not Real

“People are not driven by past causes but move toward goals they themselves set.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

“No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, the so-called trauma, but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. Our experiences do not determine us, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

Adler argued that what we call trauma today is less about pain and more about power. Taking offense and claiming victimhood isn’t always an honest emotional response, but a strategy designed to shift the dynamic. This strategy epitomizes today’s culture. It makes the “wounded” person the moral superior, allows them to frame whatever reaction as virtuous, and allows them to control the narrative over the normies. In our current cultural environment, offense only flows in one direction. Those labeled “oppressed” are allowed to offend, shame, and accuse without consequence. Their pain becomes sacred, and their anger is always justified. Their bad behavior gets rebranded as “valid.” That’s not trauma. It’s leverage.

When someone can rewrite the rules of engagement, avoid accountability, and still demand special treatment, they are not a victim. They’re in control. This is how the trauma fictional finalism is utilized today. Make no mistake: this model is deeply Freudian, even if most people invoking it have never read a single word of Freud.

Freud believed the past was the key to the present. He believed that trauma, especially in childhood, shaped the psyche forever. His whole framework was etiological, digging backward to find what went wrong. Whatever that is, it will explain today and the future. He saw trauma as a psychological wound stored in the unconscious, fueling neuroses and today’s symptoms. The job of therapy was to unearth and relive those memories, to “process” and purge. The solution was to “remember” the buried traumatic experiences and heal through reliving. If you don’t find these trauma gnostic nuggets, you will be forever locked in an unconscious prison. The past had power, and the present was its servant. Freud made the past the jailer and therapy the parole board.

"The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it... He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something in the past."

— Sigmund Freud

Adler flipped the script. He said the question isn’t “What happened to you?” It’s “What are you doing with it?” He replaced Freud’s obsession with etiology with teleology. What matters is not what lies behind you but what you’re aiming at now. “What are your goals?”. That’s what’s pulling the strings and determining symptoms today.

Adler believed trauma wasn’t an objective reality. Two people can go through the same experience. One becomes stronger. The other says they’re broken. Why? Because what matters is the story they tell themselves, and that story is only the individual who chooses. That’s why PTSD rates hover around 5% to 10% of the population. That means 90% to 95% of people in the same conditions didn’t develop “trauma” despite every single one of us having struggles, pain, suffering, or being an actual victim of a traumatic event. Freud would say you’re repressed; Adler would say you’re resilient.

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One of the greatest actors of our time is Daniel Day-Lewis. He stars in three of my favorite films: Lincoln, Gangs of New York, and There Will Be Blood. Of the three, There Will Be Blood stands apart, not just for its cinematic mastery and storytelling, but for what it reveals about the human condition when paranoia, neurosis, and pain rule over a man.

On the surface, it’s a story about capitalism and religion. But underneath, it’s a study of a man consumed by his own belief that the world is out to rob him of happiness. Daniel Plainview, played by Day-Lewis, isn’t undone by competitors, nor by faith or economics, nor even by his harsh circumstances. He’s undone by himself.

“I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.”

— Daniel Plainview

Plainview sees himself as a victim. He distrusts everyone, strikes first, and assumes betrayal at every turn. He uses aggression as preemption. He believes he’s defending himself. But in truth, he destroys everyone around him. And in the end, he stands alone, not because he lost, but because he never had the courage to live differently.

His obsessive drive, his possessiveness, and his fear metastasize into a quiet, brooding psychosis based on a lie about the way the world and life work. His success becomes his prison. His wealth is his punishment. His internalized trauma and anger are his condemnation. The literary irony is that Daniel Plainview doesn’t lose. He gets exactly what he sent out to get, and it leaves him empty.

There Will Be Blood takes place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and during that time, another man was alive who could have shown Plainview a different path and saved himself from his self-destructive entropy.

Plainview is a fictional character, but his arc is anything but fiction. His descent into isolation and bitterness is just an exaggerated version of something we all witness today. Only now does it play out in comment sections, therapy speak, and the slow erosion of the social fabric. Plainview’s emotional spiral, rooted in a self-authored victim narrative of “me against the world,” mirrors the same dynamics we see now, simply dressed in new language and filtered through modern media.

The pathology of victimhood isn’t new. It’s been rebranded and recast for today. Social media, modern therapy, and Gen Z identity politics may amplify it, but the pattern itself is ancient. This isn’t a generational glitch. It’s human nature.

There’s a long history of research on the psychology of victimhood and the weaponization of weakness. History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. Over the past few years, I’ve gone deep into this subject through my “Nice Guy” series. Along the way, I’ve read almost everything on the topic: Bad Therapy, The Rise of Victimhood Culture, The Coddling of the American Mind, Wronged, Nation of Victims, Emotional Blackmail, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, and more.

The theme is consistent: modern culture rewards superiority and control, often cloaked in a facade of helplessness. It excuses nearly any behavior or belief, as long as it’s delivered through the voice of the wounded. In today’s economy of attention and outrage, self-declared victimhood is currency, and it spends well.

The Internet has turned content into a commodity, and we’re drowning in it. Disorientation naturally follows. We often forget the past or distort it due to recency bias. We mistake what we’ve been told in school or what we scroll past online for original thought. But most of what we call “new thinking” is just recycled ideology and rebranded propaganda.

To understand how we arrived at this moment and how cultural narratives are shaped by thinkers most people have never heard of, start with Foucault. He’s the intellectual architect of the modern left’s obsession with power over truth. Meanwhile, the rise of Moral Therapeutic Deism, the soft-spoken spirituality of contemporary America, was outlined decades ago by Philip Rieff.

Today, many blame the rise of the victimhood complex on Marxism, the far left, or the collapse of Christianity and Western values. And while there’s truth in that, I’d argue it misses the deeper reality. The desire to be the wounded one, to be seen as the wronged party in every situation, isn’t ideological. It’s elementary. It predates America, Marx, and postmodernism.

The psychological rot we’re swimming in today was identified long before most of us were born. A psychotherapist lived during the same period as Daniel Plainview. He studied the same neuroses and self-destructive patterns that led Plainview to his downfall, and he offered a way out.

He understood that both inferiority and superiority complexes are rooted in the fictional narratives we tell ourselves about how life and the world should work, as well as in interpersonal issues. When we let those lies define us, we surrender our agency and freedom of choice. We lose control and we lose our identity. Adler offered a path out of that prison, a way back to freedom through work, relationship, contribution, and meaning.

That man was Alfred Adler.

A Nice Guy’s Trauma

"Like any intervention with the potential to help, therapy can harm."

— Bad Therapy

When I concluded A Christian Look at No More Mr. Nice Guy, I wanted to outline the historical context of the “Nice Guy” pathology. While shaped by modernity, it didn’t start with Dr. Glover. It exists within a broader stream of human history, a lineage that builds upon itself. The foundational building blocks of the Nice Guy are much older. Our modern, digitally-driven environment may amplify the Nice Guy effect, but nothing catches fire unless it taps into something primal. Every so-called modern affliction is, in reality, just an ancient instinct re-skinned for today. The Nice Guy syndrome is no different.

At the core of the Nice Guy spiral are a set of learned behaviors: approval-seeking, covert contracts, guilt-based manipulation, emotional dishonesty, and fear disguised as kindness. These aren’t strategies for living — they’re coping mechanisms for control and superiority. They’re just wrapped in different paper than Plainview, but the purpose and pathology are still plain to see. The Nice Guy is striving toward a goal, often without being fully aware of it. He’s chasing avoidance: avoiding rejection, shame, and discomfort, while also seeking superiority and hidden competition with others. Plainview’s approach is more culturally obvious, and Nice Guy’s approach is more subtle and manipulative. Both sides of the same coin.

As I wrote:

“Nice guys will sacrifice their needs to return back to a fake armistice… masked in passive-aggressive niceties. They consider themselves victims of circumstances and others, so they return to delivering more appeasement and approval-seeking.”

The uncomfortable truth is this: Nice Guys think they’re victims, but they’re not. They’re the ones holding the keys to their own prison and lack the courage to leave it, just like Plainview.

Nice Guys aren’t failing. They’re succeeding at achieving exactly what their behavior is designed to produce, whether they realize it or not. The cycle of shame, appeasement, and quiet resentment is the direct result of their choices. They could walk away. They don’t. That’s why being a Nice Guy is fundamentally a neurosis.

This is precisely what Dr. Robert Glover outlined in the original text:

“Nice Guy Syndrome is a shame-based disorder, and it’s also an anxiety-based disorder. Pretty much everything Nice Guys do, or don’t do, is an attempt to manage their anxiety… Just about everything a Nice Guy does is consciously or unconsciously calculated to gain someone's approval or to avoid disapproval.”

Curing men of the Nice Guy syndrome requires two things: awareness of how they perpetuate their own pathology and the courage to choose differently with better, healthier goals.

This sounds remarkably similar to another well-known book: The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga.

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If you haven’t read it, the book is structured as a dialogue between a frustrated, self-sabotaging young man — obsessed with how others perceive him — and a wise philosopher, who happens to be a student of Alfred Adler. The young man is angry, bitter, and exhausted. He blames the world for his pain and is constantly frustrated by other people’s behavior. He’s trapped in a loop of people-pleasing, blame, and the refusal to change, which he rationalizes as “an inability.” In other words: he’s a textbook Nice Guy but with a variant cursory symptoms.

“The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

In the book, the philosopher cuts through the noise. His diagnosis? Victimhood is a lie we tell ourselves to avoid responsibility. The world isn’t holding you back. You are doing this to yourself.

Before “woke” ideology, before Twitter discourse, before victimhood became social currency, Adler saw the same pattern: people drawn to neurotic helplessness, clinging to their past as an excuse to avoid their future. These individuals disregarded truth in favor of trauma, choosing stasis over change. They lived in a deep, paralyzing belief that the world was against them — a belief built on covert contracts, and the assumption that history is destiny. These lies justified their inaction, their bitterness, and their autobiographical victimhood.

“Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.”

— Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage to Be Disliked

The Father of Victimhood

The idea that we are bound by what happened to us is not new. Just as Nice Guy Syndrome has an author, so does etiological victimhood—deterministic trauma. He didn’t invent it or discover it, but he defined it and gave it categories. His name was Freud.

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Now that 2024 is coming to a close, the past 12 months have shown us how rapidly the cultural, political, and economic landscape can transform. As I reflect on the predictions I made at the start of the year, I'm struck by how many of them have come to fruition and how these developments are shaping 2025. Let's dive into what defined this year and what it means for the future.

Return of Masculinity - Correct.

The sweeping political resurgence of Donald Trump marked a turning point in the cultural pushback against "toxic masculinity" and radical far-left critiques of traditional male identity. Trump's base drew heavily from married and single men, with notable support from the masculine-focused and red-pilled communities. Even single women lost interest in Harris' campaign of trite woke issues and chose to focus on issues like crime and the economy. JD Vance further cemented this trend, directly appealing to men through messages centered on strength and leadership. JD was unabashedly critical of the US's "cat lady" culture while doubling down on gun rights and traditional values.

The clearest sign of masculinity's comeback? Comedians. Well-known Democrat-leaning Jerry Seinfeld is desperate for a masculinity comeback. Comedians are drifting more and more right because the left can't take a joke. Historically, left-leaning and moderate comics began drifting right, driven by their growing disdain for cancel culture and the victim narratives embraced by the left. Comedians, the cultural canaries in the coal mine, have an uncanny ability to sense societal shifts. Their jokes and commentary often provide a glimpse into where culture is headed next—and increasingly, it's steering away from the far left's anti-masculine ethos.

Democrats Divided - Correct.

The Republican sweep of the White House, Senate, and House in 2024 was nothing short of a catastrophic loss for the Democratic Party. As I anticipated back in 2022, Biden bowed out, paving the way for Harris to become the nominee—a decision that threw the party into an existential identity crisis. Obsessed with defining themselves as the anti-Trump theology, Democrats lost sight of what they stood for. Worse, what they do stand for is wildly out of step with mainstream American values and moral sensibilities.

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Fear permeates our world, and I'm not referring to Halloween. This fear doesn't fade with the falling leaves or end when the scary movie concludes. It isn't driven by media sensationalism or political agendas despite the 2024 election looming ahead. This fear grips our culture and society, often concealed behind polite euphemisms and toxic empathy. It is an epidemic that gradually undermines relationships, friendships, work, love, and family around the globe every day.

An unwarranted fear of being perceived as a "bad guy" holds everyone hostage, and it's time to embrace the idea of being the bad guy.

Fearing the Wrong Thing

What is apparent is not always accurate, and what is evident is not always reliable. This truth applies to nice, good, and bad guys. When you look at Severus Snape, the old adage about not judging a book by its cover rings particularly true. He is a man dressed in all black, who is mean to almost all the students except his favorites, plays with dark magic, and even associates with the Dark Lord. Yet, we understand that he served a greater purpose, with a sense of duty and honor surpassing what most of us could hope to achieve.

The opening quote references a famous twist in the Harry Potter series, where it's revealed that Snape, a character initially perceived as a villain, is actually a double agent working for the good side. In a pivotal moment, Dumbledore asks Snape to kill him, an act Snape is deeply reluctant to carry out. He plays a crucial role in Dumbledore's plan, filling a necessary gap in the strategy to defeat Voldemort. Despite his troubled past and desire for redemption, Snape embraces his role, even as it means taking on the appearance of a bad guy. Dumbledore deliberately wants Snape to maintain this façade, believing that Harry needs to learn essential lessons from Snape's "bad guy" behavior.

Ultimately, Snape emerges as the greatest hero in the Harry Potter saga, making immense sacrifices for those who despise him, driven by a love he could never fully possess. He pays the ultimate price for his loyalty and courage. In recognition of Snape's sacrifices, Harry names his son after him, honoring the character's commitment to being the "bad guy" for the greater good of Harry and the world. Throughout the series, Harry learns invaluable lessons about manhood and leadership from Snape, lessons he struggles to appreciate in the moment due to his focus on Snape's harsh demeanor. However, beneath that exterior, Snape genuinely cares for Harry and prepares him for his journey. Snape's love for Harry is profound and selfless; he prioritizes Harry's best interests above his own and ultimately gives his life without expecting anything in return.

Fearing Snape was misplaced; he was not the true villain. J.K. Rowling used the character of Snape to teach readers the importance of doing the right thing, even in the face of significant criticism and judgment. He acted as a "bad guy" to be the good guy. This example is not limited to fantasy but can also be seen in history, where many great leaders displayed courage at significant financial and social costs.

We often have a biased perspective when we consider extraordinary and fearless historical leaders, believing that their journeys were much easier than we can comprehend; however, all acts of courage come with a price. They require taking a stand against the norm, often leading to accusations of being the "bad guy"” Suppose an act does not necessitate sacrificing social standing or capital. In that case, it is, by definition, not a decision requiring much courage or bravery. In contrast, appeasement, definitionally although more popular and seemingly kinder, often allows the continuation of great evils.

Consider historic duos where the narrative has changed: Winston Churchill and Neville Chamberlain, Ronald Reagan and Communism, and Severus Snape and the Malfoys. Today, we view some leaders as heroic, but during their time, they faced intense criticism and were often labeled as the "bad guys." This phenomenon is known as chronological snobbery. These courageous leaders experienced significant ostracization before ultimately being vindicated and redeemed. As time passes, we recognize them as heroes who stood firm against naive appeasement and the emotional manipulation of toxic empathy.

Being the bad guy of today often points to being a good guy for tomorrow.

Bad is Nice

Today, we live in the most comfortable and safe period in recorded human history. Most of our fears are internalized and stem from personal issues that, in the recent past, would have been labeled absurd. For instance, try telling someone you felt unsafe because of someone's words while living on the Western Frontier in the late 1800s.

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Last year, I posted several trends I was watching on Twitter and made a handful of (primarily for fun) predictions. As we embark upon 2024, we hope for a better year than the last. Several significant trends are redefining our world, from politics to our economy, and potentially transforming our society from the ground up. Look what a sudden (but predictable) increase in interest rates caused across our economy. Often, we underestimate the impact of remote possibilities in the short term and need help seeing where the winds are blowing in the long term. Long-term transformation is constructed with small signals we often miss until it is too late.

From the end game of woke feminism to the rise of Argentina, here are significant shifts and essential trends in cultural narratives and societal constructs I am watching that have the potential to pivot and turn our world in a different direction than we expect.

The Return of Masculinity

Men are tired of being endlessly criticized and attacked by elites and pop culture. What was a hidden subculture is heading into the mainstream. Despite neverending pressure from the mainstream media, masculinity is ascending. The popularity of alternative voices like Jordan Peterson, Tim Pool, Joe Rogan, Pearl Davis, and others indicates men (and some women) are hungry for a return to normative and traditional masculinity based on duty, honor, righteousness, and love. As a counter-response to leftist media and mainstream radical feminist culture, a man with courage today is a man who is both masculine and leans center-right. This counter-revolution has less to do with actual policy and political beliefs but a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” movement.

Data shows that both men and women are desperate to change modern cultural expectations towards each other. The current secular leftist-progressivism that dominates social expectations is leading to deeper divisions, less stable family formation, less happiness, and simply is not true. When a man embraces what makes him unique and valuable as a human being (aka healthy masculinity), he chooses to stop believing a lie about themselves, society, the world, and women. When men choose to believe what is true about nature and reality, culture will stop driving a wedge between both sexes.

Masculinity is going to overtake less popular and less content woke feminism because what is currently transpiring is not working, leaving more people (regardless of sex) unhappy, and is the opposite of what people want - to love and to be loved.

Democrats are Divided

The media likes to play up that the Republican Party is seriously divided. It actually isn't. The Republican base and core constituents are aligned, but GOP elites are not. For better or worse, Trump's support within the Republican party is total, and the results from the first primaries show that.

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As we all enter another year, I wanted to share some of the things I have learned in 2023 that I will apply in 2024. I was pushed and stretched in ways I didn't predict in 2023. Despite its many complexities and challenges, I am thankful that God continues to be more creative and colorful with my life than I imagined. What is eternally true and a key ingredient to happiness is that you are not in control, and thank God you aren't. You can only be resilient and adaptive to what the world, people, time, and nature throws at us.

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

- Romans 5:3-5 (ESV)

I hope what I learned can make your 2024 successful, materially with abundant resources and immaterially with joy and peace, as we all seek the "shalom" we lost from The Beginning.

It won’t be that bad - It is heartbreaking how much raw talent you come across in this life that never actualize their talent or see their potential. Our culture and education system should teach us to look beyond ourselves and our identity categories to more agent and merit-based measures, like what we can or should do. Instead, it teaches us to look at our isolated selves and gain merit only through genetic inheritance. We should be taught the tools to understand our capabilities and skills. Instead, our systems are obsessed with things we can't change rather than what we can because the former produces a lazy victim mindset while the latter liberates you.

In 2024, don't shoot low. Don't let fear and poor self-talk win. The worst-case scenario won't happen. Take a risk and see what happens. You will be surprised by what you can accomplish when you take a chance.

“Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.”

- Unknown

It doesn't need to be this hard - One contributing factor to not living up to your potential and cutting your ceiling short is always taking the hard road out of vanity or ignorance. Don't covet the hard road. This is not a knock on hard work and going the extra mile, but it is idiotic to make your life harder than it needs to be out of pride and ego. You can see this foolishness in the self-described "hustle culture." Bragging about how hard you work to strangers is odd. Telling strangers on social media how hard things are for you or how busy you are means you are living life wrong. I know some of the busiest and most demanded people in the world, from politicians to billionaires. They don't regularly comment on or take pride in their busy schedules. In reality, they want to be less busy and spend more time on things that give them joy and life.

Next year, don't put self-imposed weights on your ankles by taking the difficult road for the sake of it. Don't fill your life with busy work to score points in the "hustle culture." Sit still and talk to your friend or loved one. Whatever itch you have, it can wait. Strategize and play smart. Run freely, and you will accomplish way more than you thought possible.

“Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.”

- Martin Luther

You take too many risks with your personal life; not enough in other areas of your life - We underestimate the risks associated with our personal life (relationships, family, and love life) and overestimate the long-term risks in the non-personal areas of our life. We are too quick to adopt certain relationships for simple joy or beauty; however, the long-term risks of these decisions have a much more significant impact on our lives if they go sideways. In a market-based economy, errors and miscalculations with work are expected. All of us have made a bad business call or lousy stock trade. Business and economic risks are much more accessible to quantify, measure, and control than personal life decisions. There are whole professions devoted to measuring business and financial risk. For our personal life, there isn't. What is the beta or alpha of an individual? How do you judge the quality of a new acquaintance? These are tough questions and require judgment. If you get a person and relationship wrong, it can cost you dearly. 

Next year, take fewer risks personally by going deeper with a smaller group of people and take more risks professionally by pushing yourself to reach higher and get out of your comfort zone.

“God never changes — so we are secure. Everything else changes — so we are insecure.”

- Elisabeth Elliot

Authenticity is winning over truth - In a world driven by shallow clicks and likes on social media, people are desperate to be seen and known with limited judgment. This cancer of brokenness and loneliness is destroying public institutions and the social fabric by eroding social capital and trust. It explains the popularity of politicians who are sparse on the truth but oversized on being their raw, authentic selves. This is the wrong sphere for bare and unencumbered authenticity, but it is among the few places people find it. We need more authenticity in private relationships and your local community. These people will show up for you when you need it, not a distant politician or a celebrity on social media you don't know. To see people who they truly are, you need to be who you actually are. This is terrifying to most people, but take heart. Courage is the rarest trait in humanity, but it is the most needed in our society today. People need help to step out and choose vulnerability.

Next year, be open and authentic to someone you know well. You will be surprised how desperate humanity is for a hug from someone who truly understands them.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

- C.S. Lewis

Be kind, not nice - This year, I spent a fair amount of time helping Christians recover from being culturally defined as "nice" and towards honesty, decency, and honor. I wrote a popular series to help men see how they can identify this pathology and recover for a happier and healthier life. Our culture impresses upon us all an idol of "being nice" over telling the truth, being a good person, and living a principled life (I call the latter being kind). The idol of niceness teaches us to emotionally submit to other people even if we disagree or they are imposing upon us. Much of our cultural cancer can be connected to people choosing "niceness" over kindness, such as the banal political culture wars and the eccentric woke ideology destroying corporate America.

In 2024, choose not to be nice but to be kind. Be a good person, not a nice guy. Nice guys don't win; good guys win.

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”

- Mark Twain

Losing friends can be a good thing - In a society that encourages us to be sentimental over truthful, amiable over moral, accommodating over good, famous over principled, you need to lose people you call "friends." Friends are a reflection of your character and what you value. In a hostile culture to virtue and integrity, you should be in a position of losing friends for stances and righteousness as our culture continues to spin out of control. This doesn't mean to intentionally wrong someone, but be totally okay (if not joyful) for destructive and unhealthy people to leave your life. Being a person of consequence and significance means you will lose friends in our shallow and amoral culture. The most significant thing our culture needs is definition. We are awash with sensations driving the mind mad, distracting us from acknowledging the truth and living in reality. The modern mind would rather be entertained over trained, distracted over edified, tantalized over refined, and placated over enlightened. Anyone who matters in today's culture is drawing lines in the sand (for better or worse, regardless of your agreement with them). How have you not lost at least some friends in the past eight years of societal insanity? If you haven't, you are not a person of consequence but an NPC adrift in an artificial life. ChatGPT is more free and more alive than you are.

This year, be okay if friends leave you for moral and good reasons.

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”

- C.S. Lewis

Being liked over respected means you get neither - Optimizing for being desired and wanted by others will result in being disliked and disrespected by others. It works like a boomerang. Respect is a curious thing. Think of the people you respect. Often, it is others we don't necessarily like or enjoy. How someone carries themselves through challenges, setbacks, victories, and successes yields respect. Respect contains not letting what others think define you and blazing your own path. Choosing to do the right thing over immense social pressure that would crush the average soul. The best part of respect is that it is a supercharger for life if we also like or love who we respect. To be liked, the first step is to actually be respected. From this, you will eventually be wanted and loved by others. You will get neither if you optimized for being liked and loved over being respected.

In 2024, focus on becoming someone worthy of respect. This means being a person of integrity who is not afraid of the hard things of life but walks with an attitude of kindness and fearlessness. Courage creates respect; anxiety and "being nice" kills respect.

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.”

- C.S. Lewis

Contempt is a social cyanide - Contempt is one of the most self-destructive forces in the world. Contempt is a poison for the soul. It is incurable with only secular methods because it is warped by self-righteous narcissism. Contempt is the opposite of hope, joy, and love. Be warned if you are around people who struggle with contempt for you or others. They will take you down to Sheol with them. They won't stop until all of your life is spent and will abandon you once they have taken their fill because this is their mission is clear - to seek and destroy. Avoid and set up boundaries as fast as possible. If you struggle with contempt, God help you. Jesus is the only cure I know. If you humble yourself as a sinner before Christ, you will experience liberation with the power of forgiveness and grace. Knowing you are forgiven and received mercy is the vaccine.

This year, remove contemptuous people from your life immediately.

“Forgiveness says you are given another chance to make a new beginning.”

- Desmond Tutu

Jealousy is thriving and deadly - Jealousy is an unspoken and accepted sin in our culture. Social media promotes envy and narcissism without batting an eye. Our expert class and media companies are obsessed with quickly selling ideas and products based on your feelings and promoting precarious sophism. Banning jealousy is one of the forgotten Ten Commandments because it fuels our modern unhappy culture. From the social media influence culture to pop culture obsessions, our contemporary currency is envy, driving deep unhappiness and destruction. Jealousy doesn't get you anywhere. Clear evidence is that many social media influencers are caught with entirely fake lives. They do whatever it takes to earn envy currency: likes, views, and attention. Jealousy and envy are typically based on a self-imposed illusion, and this delusion will destroy you. God viewed jealousy and envy as essential to put on the same list as murder, adultery, stealing, and idol worship. Head His warning.

In 2024, choose to be thankful, not jealous. The former will set you free, and the latter will ruin you.

“Envy is resenting God’s goodness to others and ignoring God’s goodness to me.”

- Rick Warren

Care about fewer things but with more intensity - Reduce the number of things you follow or care about. Our culture has too many concerns or issues for a single person to pay attention to. Most of these issues won't matter in the long run, and the probability you can impact the outcome of anything reported in the news is basically zero. Our culture pushes us to be emotional about shallow and wide topics rather than discerning by going deep and focused. You see this problem in our useless public intellectual class, which lacks wisdom and discernment. A shallow mind cares more about credentials than expertise and wisdom. If you care about what an astrophysicist says about religion and morality, you are part of the problem. Not caring about some issues or letting others take the lead frees you to spend time on things that matter to you and will impact your life. Don't waste your time trying to win the race of vain credentials over true expertise and wisdom. Learn the phrase "I don't care" and use it judiciously. It liberates you to live the life you want and not be controlled by others because of issues that concern them and not you.

In 2024, say "I don't care" more.

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”

- Francis Chan

I hope you spend welcoming 2024 with those you love and enjoy. The most common New Year's resolutions always focus on building a happier life with others we love and a healthier life for ourselves. I hope you started 2024 by remembering the power of love to transform your life and those around you.

Over the last few months, I have received countless messages from men looking to recover from being a nice guy and to become a good guy. The first step to recovery is acknowledging your problem, so for that I commend you. I have also received messages from wives and girlfriends asking for advice on how to help. Either their husband is in denial (not surprising for nice guys), or their partner has admitted that he is trying to get better and control his nice guy pathologies.

My series on nice guys is thorough but primarily addressed to them, not significant others. Having help from close friends or intimate relationships can turbocharge recovery, so I want to provide some practical steps to help your nice guy heal and change. Implementing the following practices as a permanent feature of your relationship will build you both towards more fulfillment, true love, and freedom in your connection and the life you’ve always wanted. Having a helping hand and encouragement from loved ones and a spouse can accelerate rehab, and be the most powerful force for lasting change is always feeling grace and love from another.

Start with Honesty

The crucial first step to recovery from a nice guy towards a good guy is simple yet incredibly difficult for any pathological nice guy - just be honest.

Honesty is the most significant step towards recovery a nice guy can take. Nice guys hide what they want, how they feel, their behaviors, and their fears. They’re ashamed of or scared to share what they truly want and hide those desires and wants. They want to look wantless and needless, even though they have wants and needs, because they believe that is the path to love, acceptance, and joy in the minds of all nice guys. All of this is vain peacocking for approval and appeasement. Rather than being upfront and direct with their hopes and desires, nice guys manipulate with faux generosity and pleasantries so all of it returns to themselves. It’s a “nice guy covert karma” game to get what they want from others.

Good guys are the exact opposite. They are honest and direct. They are not mean or harsh with their views or desires, but don’t hide from the truth. The first step towards recovery is encouraging a nice guy to share what’s on their heart and mind. Push your nice guy to share whatever comes to mind without fear or judgment. Push him to say what he wants without compromise or guilt. You are looking for radical transparency and you need to promise your nice guy there will be no consequences for being honest. Just get it all out on the table. This is not the time for judgment and critiques.

Recovery for a nice guy requires rebuilding on what is accurate and true, not whatever manipulated delusional reality you and your nice guy currently live in. Admitting that whatever relationship you have with your nice guy is manufactured is exceptionally hard but necessary. Creating a level and clear playing field between both parties is the hardest part of recovery. Still, honesty empowers every other rehab step and, eventually, restoration.

Don’t judge what is shared

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When I turned on the movie Renfield, I had no idea what the core plot or narrative was. After all, this is just a Nicholas Cage movie. Renfield is either going to be absurd, weird, or awkwardly funny. Surprisingly, the writers crafted a modern Dracula with concepts around toxicity, codependency, and the Nice Guy Syndrome. Dracula doesn’t just live off of people’s blood but is a metaphor for how toxic people suck the life out of healthy people. Toxic people survive by stealing life from others, not just blood but the soul. The lesson from the movie Renfield is that the real power is not in toxicity (Dracula) but in healthy people who choose to end toxic relationships and thwart unhealthy people from sucking their life out (Renfield).

The creators of Renfield gave toxic relationships a persona in Dracula because unhealthy relationships look, act, and follow a pattern. It is recognizable, like how you identify someone on the street. Toxic people walk and talk a certain way. Healthy people walk and talk a certain way. Both have hallmarks of behavior. Both have birthmarks attached to the person we can notice. These traits are easy to spot and come with a long history. We either have birthmarks of health or unhealth.

"What would happen if you stopped focusing on his needs," - Counselor

"He won't grow to full power!" - Renfield

"That's so weird. Why would you phrase it like that?" - Counselor

We primarily interact with “covered” humanity. Covered can be from physical pieces of clothing to mental and emotional walls that people utilize to prevent intimacy and connection. The irony of life is that we will see more articles of clothing than actual people because we all use various strategies to conceal ourselves from reality and connection. We all spend billions a year to hide from one another yet, at the same time, deeply desire for connection. The question arises: how can you tell the difference between good and bad people? How can you decide what relationships are worth your time, energy, resources, and effort?

In light of my viral series on Nice Guys and courage, several readers wanted to know how to tell quickly if someone is healthy or toxic. Trusting your gut in ending and forming new relationships is challenging for a recovering nice guy. There is always a lot of drama once nice guys choose to recover and stop toxic behavior around them. This can be alarming and unsettling to everyone around them, which causes some nice guys to fall back into old patterns. Simple and easy-to-follow rubrics and rules of thumb to indicate a toxic or healthy person do exist.

The best way to tell and to (using an unacceptable phrase) judge a book by its cover is to peel under the masks. Remove the immaterial barriers, both the mental and emotional. Remove the physical walls of clothing and appearance. Look for the birthmark of an individual. By birthmark, I mean the pattern of how they live and treat other people. The hallmark of an individual is the birthmark they show the world. Every person is a subjective history book and isolated reality. Dracula has a long history of destroying lives and victims; look at his past to tell you what he will do in the future. All humans carry this personal history book with them wherever they go. It’s in their story and resides in how they walk and talk. This will tell you all you need to know if you are making a wise bet on a good person and destined to have the life sucked out.

A Straightforward Guide

Based on our current understanding, science hasn’t been able to explain why we have birthmarks and why some don’t. There are many theories, but most assume that birthmarks are formed in the womb near the moment of conception. These marks are planned genetically from the very beginning of our lives and then fully develop as we mature physically, emotionally, and mentally. Birthmarks are unique to every person. The same goes for everyone’s story and the life we live. We all contribute to history, but everyone’s account is different. You and I are snowflakes, but we are all made of water. At the core, we are the equivalent but not identical.

I’ve developed the following birthmarks as hallmarks, like an early detection system for healthy and unhealthy people. You want to look past the vainly physical and reach deeper into the more profound inquiry of character and values as soon as possible. This is where the footing of a healthy and unhealthy person exists. The key to utilizing this early detection system is not looking for the behavior but the surrounding context and meaning the birthmark provides to the individual. It is hard to hide these core character qualities throughout a person’s story. Unveil who a person is, and you can determine if they are Dracula or Reinfeld.

Empathy, first and foremost

Relationships require two people fundamentally; toxic people forget that as a habit. A key ingredient to a healthy relationship is knowing that you are not the only one in the relationship. A healthy birthmark is an ability to understand and comprehend how others feel. This doesn’t mean agreement or acceptance but knowing how someone else can think, feel, or believe something different than your own. This can appear as an ability to acknowledge and repeat how others feel about a situation.

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Yesterday, I went on Ben Shapiro’s show to discuss my popular series on friendship, manhood, and courage. I outlined the failure of our modern society to continue the enduring values that built great civilizations and societies. One of those overlooked bygone virtues is good male friendships and Biblical masculinity. Our modern-day culture perpetuates lies and slanders about men to keep them from achieving great things for their loved ones and the world. With Shapiro, I dig into how this happened and what we can do about it.

Since my series is concluded and my subscriber-based has quadruped while writing it, I wanted to quickly outline each series segment for easy reflection for all my new subscribers

Friendship is vital

Having high-quality friends is an essential and foundational element of being a good man. Today, friends are incredibly underrated and replaced with disingenuous replicants found in addictions, romantic relationships, and work. The power of friendship is its ability to generate loving attachment that pushes you to have courage and to be a better version of yourself. If you want to be a good man, it is required and necessary to have friends.

Don’t be a nice guy

Our modern society has perpetuated a lie that to be a good and strong man today is to be a “nice guy.” This is prevalent across Christian and secular circles. This toxic-shame psychosis is crushing the soul of men and removes any hope of them ever standing up for themselves. Our pro-nice guy culture teaches men to be manipulative, dishonest, covert, resentful, push-overs, people pleasers, and failures. This a prison of self-incarceration from appeasement that I want to set you free from.

End your distorted reality

Men today confuse themselves and the world around them. To be a strong and good man, you must have self-respect and be yourself. The worldly “self-esteem movement” taught you to “believe in yourself,” and good things will happen to you; not seeing these lies locked you into a pattern of being a loser by obscuring reality. To become a good man and stop being a nice guy, you must accurately know the world and yourself as it frankly is. Stopping internalized toxic shame that alters your perception of the world begins by being honest about how you feel and what you want out of life.

Courage is a must

The virtue of courage is neglected by modern generations. Most public displays of courage are fraudulent, masked with victimization and immoral scapegoating. True courage requires faith and challenging the status quo for honor and righteousness. You cannot defend good and defeat evil without courage and bravery. Once you start standing up for yourself and taking control of your life, it will feel like you were reborn. Courage gives you a new birth.

Stop toxic relationships

One of the most common pathologies in our society is how we tolerate toxic relationships out of obligation or vacant compassion. A critical step towards recovery from being a nice guy and becoming a good man is learning to stop the perpetual cycle of choosing unhealthy relationships. These relationships lack boundaries and genuine care for your life. Toxic relationships are an anchor to your soul and spirit. Choose healthy and loving relationships that will walk into the battle of life with you.

Jesus was kind

Modern-day “Big Evangelism” pushes falsehoods about the Christian worldview and Christ’s behavior while He was on earth. Jesus wasn’t nice but kind. Those are very different things. Becoming a good man means addressing your serious misconceptions about Christ and church history. Sound Christian theology teaches masculinity is strong, assertive, kind, moral, and courageous.

The 17th hole at Old Course St Andrews is considered one of the most challenging holes in the world. This is a long Par 4 at 456 yards, and the fairway is very tight. The most challenging part of the hole is the green doglegs right around a hotel, making the tee shot blind. It gets even more complex. The wind on the 17th is infamous for making every shot tricky. You have to adjust your strategy and hit toward the rough. If you aim directly toward the green in a straight line, you will land in the rough. Like in golf, your strategy for reaching a goal will impact how sustainable the victory is.

When you exclusively focus on the end outcome, you will miss the strategy needed to get you there sustainably. It will be a flash in the pan. Shooting naively directly for the goal, hoping to get there as quickly as possible, you will only land in the deep rough. Then, prepare yourself to chop and chop through the thick brush of pain and suffering to get back on track. Myopically focusing on the goal will build your pyrrhic victory on a weak foundation and will fail to achieve your dreams.

Standing up for yourself and having courage can’t be achieved by staring aggressively at the end goal. This creates the worst versions of inauthentic masculinity. How you achieve your end goal of self-respect and confidence is less than sheer grit and more about what foundations you are building toward victory. How you play each shot leading up to the green will determine if you authentically stand up for yourself and have the courage for lasting change. To attain permanent courage, each shot must be well placed and measured to address your toxic shame by placing your identity in Christ and remembering who you are in light of the Cross. Establishing your identity in Christ is the enduring strategy to stop bowing to what the world and others say about you. It is the eternal and unshakable foundation which you can stand up for yourself from. Don’t run head first directly for the goal, or you will end up in a rougher spot than when you started.

Shame and Guilt

We need to sparse the difference between shame and guilt. When you comingle and distort the differences, you will misinterpret yourself, leaving you confused and feeling like a powerless victim.

Guilt and shame are profoundly interconnected but not equivalent feelings and experiences. Guilt is something you feel for actions. As we have all seen, it is possible to be guilty but not feel guilty. It also works inversely. It is possible to feel guilt and not be guilty at all. We call a person who commits capital crimes and feels no guilt a sociopath. We also have all experienced feelings of guilt for things that were innocent mistakes, actions done in good faith, or nothing at all. Due to the Fall, our hearts work like faulty warning systems; sometimes, it is a false alarm, and sometimes a burglar is in your house.

Shame is somewhat subjective and is much more extensional to the whole person. While guilt and shame can feel equivalent, guilt doesn’t challenge and shake a person’s identity. Guilt is associated with wrong actions, while shame says, “I am the wrong person.” Guilt can be containerized toward a specific event, while shame feels like you are drowning. Shame will cause people to freeze and mentally shut down. Toxic shame suffocates the life of people. Guilt is associated with personal responsibility, while shame is linked to social contagion. Shame drives us to flee from others, freeze, fight, or put up a veneer to hide in plain sight. The opposite of guilt is innocence; the opposite of shame is honor.

Both shame and guilt exist in Scripture. Both can be wholly applicable and morally good reactions to an event. Shame can give your wider community an insight into your actions with the goal of restoration and healing. This is healthy. You cannot be restored by yourself. You need community and God’s truth reflected in the Bible. When a human is impervious to judgment from others, there is no check on their power. They will become a monster, as seen at the societal level with authoritarians or at the spiritual level with cults. Shame can be valuable and good. This sentiment is Biblical (Mark 8:38, 1 Corinthians 15:34, Proverbs 29:15, Psalm 119:78).

Shame and guilt are built into our natural wiring and extend our earliest relationship with God. In the Garden of Eden, God created Adam and Eve (titled “woman” before the Fall). Both were “naked and unashamed” (Genesis 2:25). When they ate the forbidden fruit, they disobeyed God and were deeply ashamed. Their shame was so intense that they concealed themselves from God and tried to cover themselves with leaves (Genesis 3:10). Adam and Eve didn’t feel guilt but bottomless shame. Trying to hide yourself is shame, not just guilt. There was nothing wrong with Adam and Eve being naked. God never mentioned that as a sin, yet they covered themselves with leaves in vain. The fundamental fear behind shame (and the difference with guilt) is that someone will see me as I authentically am, completely exposed, and then reject me because “I am repulsive and worthless.” Shame is built upon poor self-talk and low self-worth.

Despite Adam and Eve’s disobedience, God still met their needs and will meet our needs now. When God sends them out of the Garden, He gives them superior clothing made of leather. He clothes them so they can have a sense of honor and dignity in the newly fallen world they must live in (Genesis 3:21). Honor is comparable to shame and is conferred on us by others. Like in the Garden, Jesus fulfills our needs and addresses our guilt and shame. He sees us for who we really are and loves us anyway. This is how you heal from shame and stand up for yourself - understand and believe what Christ says about you, not what others say about you.

Your shame is finished

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It was a magnificent journey to write No More Mr. Nice Guy Treastie. I sincerely enjoyed the long nights writing, reading private messages from readers, and chatting with my editors daily, which included several recovering or recovered nice guys. A piece of consistent feedback I received from my readers was how I practically applied this series in demanding situations and hard conversations. I got the question, “How do I practically stand up for myself?” For nice guys, any level of conflict is already terrifying. They freeze like deer in headlights. Knowing in advance that a conversation will be challenging and emotional, a nice guy will commit hara-kiri’/seppuku with their toxic shame and evade standing up for themselves, even though internally they desperately want to.

Here are a few tips I have learned to manage difficult conversations and stand up for yourself over the years. This is not some MBA-style foolishness or other pseudoscience trickery to improve your odds of winning. No, these are rules of wisdom to redeem and restore relationships. This is my best advice based on my experience investing in almost a hundred men, running several companies, hundreds of media interviews, and being canceled by a media mob three times (yes, three times).

When I offer advice or wisdom that illuminates and intellectually liberates a man when facing a tough and challenging conversation, one of my great friends calls me “Mr. Miyagi.” “I was just Mr. Miyagi’d,” he would say. I take this as a compliment (and it is funny). I hope these practical tips and proven wisdom can help you stand up for yourself, walk as a man of courage, stop unhealthy relationships, and help you achieve your deepest desires. If you aren't heard, you will never accomplish your dreams or fulfill your calling. Not standing up for yourself means no one will see or hear you, and you will always finish last.

Why you should stand up for yourself

It may feel simplistic, but clearly outlining the benefit of doing something hard helps focus you on the outcomes, not the rocky journey ahead. Here are the benefits of standing up for yourself.

• Gain respect from others - Individuals who stand up for themselves organically get positive attention from others. Once people see that you cannot be easily swayed, manipulated, intimidated, or exploited, others will likely reconsider their positions. They will be drawn to agree with you and want your approval.

• Guarantees self-respect - You are simultaneously assuring and establishing self-respect by standing up and being counted for your opinions. Not only do you accumulate respect from others, but you repair your internal respect barometer, which is running low. To earn respect from your others, you have to respect yourself first. Self-respect is a honey pot for good and healthy relationships. Good people are drawn to self-respect and repelled by the opposite.

• Formulates character and identity - Standing up against hardship and adversity gives you an enhanced perspective regarding your identity, values, morality, ethics, and personality. It sharpens your identity to take on even more complex challenges in the future, and you become a reliable partner to help others in need. Standing up for yourself in difficult times forges an ability to lead well and with exceptional decision-making skills. Once you know you can survive a single trial, it builds your confidence that you can slay future problems with ease. You are assured you can battle whatever the future throws at you.

• Clarifies and builds confidence - When you stand up for yourself, you can readily see and understand your strengths and weaknesses. No one is superhuman, and you can’t do everything well. Standing up for yourself prevents you from getting locked into a soul-draining quagmire. You will start betting your time and energy on situations that lead to growth and flourishing. Standing up for yourself clarifies the truth and allows you to see how to draw your own path in life. You can easily see how you can get the life you want.

• Get what you want finally - Individuals who don’t stand up for themselves let the current of life and others push them in whatever direction. They are not steering their own boat but passively floating down the river, which leads to destruction, shame, and depression. If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will. The only way to get other people to care about your problems is for you to care about your own. Like self-respect, it will draw in healthy and loving relationships that can help you accomplish your wants and desires.

• Increases trust across relationships - As a result of increased confidence and a restoring foundation of self-respect, you will know who you are and what you are about. You will trust yourself, and in response, others will trust you. This will deepen your relationships, and you will experience a new level of intimacy. When you stand up for yourself, you show others you trust yourself, from your opinions to morals to values. Trust is how you get more of what you want and more people to genuinely love you.

• Grows love and intimacy - People will love you more when they trust you and see that you stand up for yourself, even if it means standing up to them. The only way to be trusted is to be reliable and predictable in your behavior and life. This means standing up against the whims of the world and the emotions of others. Standing up for yourself is essential to be truly loved and adored the way you want. Why should other people love you if you don’t love yourself by being a doormat? Doormats are for shoes, not human hearts.

A key lesson to understand is that as you stand up for yourself, you draw in others who do the same. You attract caring relationships with existing self-respect and who will return respect and love to you. This whole process is a reflective and self-reinforcing loop that feeds on itself (the same but in the opposite direction for toxic shame and self-destruction). People in your life who don’t want you to stand up to them don’t love or trust you. They probably have contempt for you. Everyone is sinful and broken, so we all need love and accountability. No one is exempt. You must redeem and restore these unhealthy relationships, or they will destroy your life. As you stand up to these toxic relationships, others around you who are healthy and loving will see it and will be drawn in. So taking the first step to stop destructive relationships is to start a cycle of respect and love by standing up for yourself. All of these positive outcomes compound and build upon themselves over time. You just initiated the refreshing of your own life without planning for it. It’s magical to experience and witness others make this self-actualizing evolution.

17 ways to stand up for yourself

Nice guys and other self-effacing personalities don’t stand up for themselves for many reasons. It could be your parents were overbearing and difficult to please, or it can be low self-respect or past trauma that prevents intimacy. Humans are a carnival show of superficial and bizarre rationalizations for their decision-making processes. I have seen good strong men be convinced they were fragile creatures. I have witnessed losers think they are great. I have seen people drown themselves in shame and depression. I have seen families drown themselves in loneliness and despair, hoping to achieve an idol of peace and earthly happiness with a “good marriage.” Trying to map and understand all of these explanations is a fruitless and undying endeavor. We must accept that humans and relationships are messy. Let’s get tactical and move forward. Helping you move forward and achieve wins is an edifying intellectual and inspirational challenge for me. Master Ginn is here to help to train you in The Way.

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It is time to end a month-long journey and conclude my No More Mr. Nice Guy Treatise, but according to my editors, I saved the best for last. What started as a small passion project has quadrupled my subscribers and readers. I am humbled. I have received hundreds of messages worldwide, and it’s been a blessing to see pain and heartache turn into a story of redemption and liberation. God works in magical ways, and He will always surprise me.

My experience writing this series brought me closer to the core Gospel message of the Christian faith. God took something so horrible (The Cross) and shamed the world’s powers for our benefit, for salvation (Colossians 2:15). God’s business is redemption and restoration. The horrid Cross is now a message of love and victory.

The message of this series is just therapy to open your eyes; it isn’t the cure for the nice guy disorder. Nice guys need a vaccine to become enduring and redeemed good guys. Nice guys need a “good guy” immune response to attack the toxic shame virus. The cure is forming your identity in Christ and putting your emotional center in God with the help of deep relationships that will love and protect you.

There is a counterfeit cure on the market that presents as a “good guy,” but it is poisonous alchemy. This elixir is the most destructive expression of the nice guy disease: nice guy Christians. They take the Lord’s name in vain and misguide men towards the prison of shame and victimization from the nice guy disease. In my last installation, it is time to free you from nice guy Christians and win the spiritual war over shame towards love, freedom, and joy in Christ.

Nice Guy Review

This is a beast of a series. It would take an hour to read from start to finish, so let’s briefly review a summary of the series as a refresher. From the first post in my series, I defined what a nice guy is:

Nice guys appear moderately successful and well put together by cultural standards. They seem to have a perfect life, but following a self-effacing solution is the source of that perfection. Nice guys believe they will get the success, attention, and affection they desire by getting more people and more people to approve of their actions with increasing doses of self-destructive compliance and submission, ending with resentment, anger, confusion, and exhaustion. Nice guys know they are not good enough by their internalized benchmarks and standards, but they cannot healthily express their disappointment. They hide and compartmentalize their life based on fear of anger from others, rejection, and abandonment. This makes them internally frustrated, enraged, and dissatisfied with their situation. At the same time, they also feel like a victim, powerless, impotent, and hopeless. They fear standing up for themselves because their operating system is based on approval and self-flagellation. As soon as they express confidence and responsibility, they believe they will lose control of the situation and potentially be abandoned. They are terrified to speak up because they will be “found out” as some sort of “fraud”. Nice guys won’t say what they think and defend themselves due to potential criticism that makes them feel like an undeserving fraud. They are fearful of not meeting up to cultural expectations and never-ending social status objectives. They don’t take risks and bet on themselves because they fear they will muck it up when it matters most at the finish line and be known as a failure by others. Nice guys are afraid of actual success.

In their mind, the means of being an alpha male (what they want) is to be a beta male (what they are doing). They are a real-life “Free Guy” - a purposeless existence awash in bitter generosity and blind appeasement without even a distinct name

Nice guys have several characteristics and typical behaviors that make them easy to spot. Nice guy Christians are no different, but they mask their manipulative and spineless behavior in fake spiritual humility and a misinterpretation of the life and work of Jesus Christ. I review the common nice guy traits in three parts and offer remedies to their self-destructive pathologies:

Core Operating Motives

• Approval Idolization - Desires a constant need for approval creates a self-destructive pathology

• Conflict Avoidant - Idolizing the approval of others means problems are avoided and bitterly unresolved

• Giving with Hidden Motives - Generosity with strings leading to constant disappointment and exhaustion

• Unspoken Contracts and Rules - Not expressing what they need or want based on fear

The Distorted Self

• Toxic Shame - Toxic guilt fuels the constant need for approval from others and a lack of self-respect

• False Reality of Victimization - A deep desire for a world that will never be real and consequently feels like a victim when it doesn’t occur

• Poverty Mindset - Doesn’t make decisions based on limitless growth and abundance but fear and approval

• Hides Feelings and Faults - Ashamed of being fully known and believes he is a fraud

• Fear of Failure - Failures are seen as a sign of being a fraud over learning and growing

Broken Relationships

• Stubborn Destructive Relationship Cycles - Chooses a cycle of appeasement based on fear of abandonment and creates failed relationships

• Unhealthy Partners - Chooses intimate relationships that are emotionally unavailable and will lead to self-destruction

• Broken Boundaries - Inability to assert himself well without hurting others and fails at setting up boundaries to protect loved ones

• Fails at Reconciliation - Avoids conflict from toxic shame to the point of damaging healthy relationships

• Obsessed Self-Righteous Fixers - Desires unhealthy relationships that need fixing and refuses to take care of themselves

“Nice” means what?

The word “nice” has Latin roots and is estimated to first appear in English around the 14th century. “Nice” comes from the Latin word “nescius” which basically means “ignorant”. When “nice” entered English, it had many uses and senses. With time, “nice” molded into an assortment of whatever someone wanted it to represent. Dictionary.com has tracked the use of the word “nice” over time. Here is what they found:

Lewd, wanton, dissolute; coy, modest, diffident, reticent; fastidious; marked by refinement; requiring meticulous choice; requiring or marked by delicate discrimination; lacking vigor or endurance; trivial; pleasing and satisfying; enjoyable, attractive, or delightful; well-intentioned; mild, pleasing, clement (of weather); well or appropriately dressed; most inappropriate (used ironically); unpleasant, unattractive, mean; virtuous, chaste; not profane, indecent, or obscene.

Reading those definitions is a gut punch of disdain and folly toward nice guys. “Nice” is a chameleon word without a clear explanation or purpose. It molds with the wind of others and popular culture. Over the ages, “nice” meant whatever you wanted it to be. This is metaphysically fitting as it conforms to the acrobat nature of modern “nice guys” today. They can’t see the actual world before them. Instead, their mind is warped by trying to please people who will never be satisfied until nice guys have nothing left to give and are an empty shell of who they once were.

Due to its late appearance in human history and Latin roots, “nice” never appears in the Bible. The Bible is written in Hebrew and ancient Greek, so it is impossible for the word “nice” to appear in early manuscripts. Scripture has modern colloquial synonyms that we often use interchangeably with “nice” today; however, these words are much richer in meaning in Scripture and have distinct definitions and orientations, which “nice” fails this test. The Bible never utilizes unspecific or vague terms but beautifully profound and wonderfully liberating words. Our earthly culture and nice guy Christians would say “kindness” is the same as “nice”; however, both terms are structurally and epistemologically opposites.

Kindness crushes Niceness

“Nice” never appears in The Bible, only “kind.” “Kindness” and its variants repeatedly appear in The Bible. While our modern dull secular society believes both mean the same, ancient Greek and Hebrew tell different stories.

When the Bible says “kind” or “kindness,” that word is probably “chréstotés” in Greek. This word comes from the combination of three words (ancient Greek is complicated):

• “chrestos” means useful and profitable in turn

• “chraomai” means to furnish what is needed in turn

• “chráo” means to lend and furnish as a loan

“Kindness” typically translates into four different nouns in our English translations, “goodness, uprightness, kindness, and gentleness.” Contextually in Scripture, “chréstotés” is doing objectively good deeds, serving others, God’s posture toward us, or our posture toward others. The most immediate translated words from Greek to English are rooted in a clear metaphysical framework of good and evil, which is the opposite of the narcissistic neurotic approval-seeking of nice guys. You cannot be “good” without a definition of good. You cannot be “gentle” without an objective framework of who and what deserves compassion. Compassion requires a rule of thumb of what is more significant and lesser than others. Nice guys want approval from everyone, and they have no boundaries, so their rule of thumb is maximum appeasement and the least amount of conflict possible. According to ancient Greek, this is the opposite of kindness.

The Old Testament is written in Hebrew and not Greek. Kindness is “chesed” in Hebrew. “Chesed” occurs nearly 200 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is most commonly translated as “mercy,” “kindness,” lovingkindness,” “goodness,” and “lovingkindness.” The root of “chesed” is “chased,” which means an eager or ardent desire to do something. This is both utilized for “good” and “kind” deeds; however, there are a handful of cases where it appears as “shame” or “contempt,” ironically. “Chesed” closest meaning would be a type of zeal, love, and kindness towards someone or God’s passion, love, and kindness towards us. It tells us to live in mutual benevolence, charity, goodwill, and mercy between people. It also could mean devotional piety of people towards God and grace, compassion, and kindness of God towards His people.

Here are some common appearances of the Greek and Hebrew version of “kindness” with some interpretation notes -

“Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love, remember me for your goodness, O Lord! Good and upright is the Lord; therefore, he instructs sinners in the way.” - Psalm 25:7-8

In this verse, “goodness” and “good” are both “chréstotés”. The context of this Pslam is God’s redeeming love for David while he is in pain. Through God’s kindness, He is redeeming David and setting things right. There is a connection between true justice and love, which is kindness.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:28-30

“Rest” here (in other translations, it is “easy”) is the adjective form of “chréstotés.” Kindness here is associated with God’s posture toward us as we walk in His ways of love, reconciliation, and restoration. Kindness is associated with following godly duties and following in Christ’s footsteps.

“Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” - Romans 2:4

“All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” - Romans 3:12

Paul clearly associates kindness here with repentance and reorients our lives away from living in disobedience toward the life He wants for us.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.” - Galatians 5:22

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” - Colossians 3:12

Kindness is a part of our redeemed nature in Christ. It is associated with our renewed freedom from sin and self-righteousness. We don’t need the world’s approval as we have a new identity in Christ.

“So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” - Ephesians 2:7

Kindness is united with our future state in heaven. Kindness is holy.

From this textual analysis, “being nice” and “being kind” are distinct. In a systematic Biblical context, Jesus never claimed to be nice, and God never commanded us “to be nice.” This is a modern American Christian church manifestation. This is a sin of Big Eva. The church didn’t win against nice guy syndrome but fell victim to it. A stark difference exists between “nice,” which is being agreeable and polite for the sake of sentimentalism and people-pleasing, and “kind,” which is showing compassion of your own free will and acting on behalf of others for good.

Kindness is deeply ingrained with responsibility, individual agency, and generosity. Kindness is measured against a moral code, not everyday sentimentalism’s pleasantries. Nice is a subjective agreeableness with a craving for self-effacing prostration. Kind guys are good guys who choose a path that conscience dictates, no matter the blowback or scorn from the world. Kind guys do what is good and what the Lord desires. Nice guys will decide on a direction based on what looks good to others to get approval dopamine from unhealthy relationships. Niceness is heavily focused on outward consequences and outcomes, while kindness comes from the soul and an individual’s desire to assert for good by his own free will. Kindness stems from an internal motivation to abide by principles of true love, generosity, concern for others, truth, and a desire for reality to come to light.

Good guys are kind; nice guys are a bastardized and worldly version of “kind” that Jesus would condemn.

A Nice Jesus is a Weak Jesus

The word “Christian” comes from the Greek word, Χριστιανός (Christianos). Breaking this apart, it is a combination of “following” of “the Anointed One,” with an adjectival ending implying “slave ownership” to Christ. We use “Christian” today as a noun when the structure is more like a possessive verb.

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This is the third segment in my four-part series on how to rescue you or others from the nice guy syndrome and become a “good man” over a “nice man”. The first part of the series introduced "What is a nice guy?" and the nice guy's foundational beliefs. The second part of the series outlined how the distorted self creates a pattern of self-sabotage.

To prepare you for the forthcoming difficult message, here is some encouragement from strangers and friends who have read "No More Mr. Nice Guy Treastie." These men range in age and occupation, from a college student to a well-known tech CEO to a venture capitalist:

• “When I read the first part of this series, my eyes were opened. I saw I was finding my worth in what others thought of me. I applied some of these basic rules, and already my life feels better. I will no longer submit to the sin of appeasement. I’ve been praying not to be a nice guy but to become a good guy.”

• “Aaron told me how, why, and when to say ‘no’. I didn’t know how to do that before this. He taught me to stand up for myself, be confident in what I want, and have self-respect. This transformed my marriage and my other relationships for the better.”

• “It’s weird. In some ways, I think being nice has served me well. In others, I think it’s really set me back, like with my female relationships. I got run over in my first marriage, and when I finally lost all hope and hit rock bottom, I grew a pair of balls and told her how bad she had been treating me and that I wanted out. I waited too long to say anything, and she exited the relationship without trying. It was sad. I still find myself trying to be nice; it’s a hard habit to break. It’s an internal fight with myself where I run from or toward conflict. Am I insecure or confident? Do I need her approval or God’s approval? I must consciously snap back into saying how I feel and asking for what I want. I tell you that because your first nice guy piece hits on several themes above, and it’s been helpful to have someone validate that I’m not crazy and lovingly guide me as well.”

• “I’m grateful you’re spending your time and energy on this. I meet and talk with many guys; the story is the same. The only reason they say they put up with their women is either ‘the kids’ or ‘I’d like to get laid even if it is bad’. Sad. God has you lined up to deliver an important message. He’s built your influence over the last 3 years for this moment.”

As we entered the final half point of the series, I saved the most challenging part for last. In this segment, we will cover how nice guys abuse and get abused in their relationships. This could pull at your heart in ways you did not imagine or foresee, and something could rise up inside of you to direct you to either shame or anger. The fundamental lesson in every single segment in my series is for you to take responsibility and attain self-respect.

Don’t blame others for your failures. Don’t project your mistakes upon others. Don’t disguise yourself even further. Own your situation and your decisions that have built this figment of a simulator life that has left you and others unhappy. If you don’t own your circumstance, you will not have the agency, confidence, and drive to do something about it. You are not a victim, and you are not powerless. You can get out of it. You can end your toxic shame. I know from experience; I have been here before.

Good men win and protect those they love; nice guys hurt and destroy those they love. Knowing which one you are will emerge based on how you respond to this message.

Last week’s posts

Stubborn Destructive Relationship Cycles

Two core relationship patterns prevent nice guys from getting what they desire in friendship, love, marriage, and life. They are dysfunctionally stubborn and follow these failed models like a religion.

• Shame Recycling - Nice guys regularly recycle a familiar, comfortable, and dissatisfying relationship loop. Nice guys only know a pattern of self-efficacy abuse and manipulative approval-seeking. They can’t imagine a relationship can be formed any differently. Due to their toxic shame and low self-respect, they are drawn to domineering, overbearing, and expansive personalities. Relationships that don’t fit that mold are scary, as nice guys cannot manipulate these individuals into their wants and desires. Healthy, confident relationships break a nice guy’s relationship and love-seeking methodology and strategy.

• Terrible Enders - Nice guys cannot end unhealthy relationships and associations healthily and reasonably due to the continuous loop. Nice guys will let unhealthy relationships drag until there is no hope for improvement or reconciliation. Then, these relationships suddenly explode because they cannot last. They avoid conflict, hide their true nature, and make indirect decisions to the point that an explosive end is the only outcome. The collateral damage tends to be much broader than a nice guy can predict, leaving many more hearts unhappy and broken. Their inability to clarify difficult situations drives a downward spiral of shame and resentment. Regularly this downward spiral leaves trusted and healthy relationships scarred from either shrapnel from the blast radius of an unhealthy relationship or a loss of confidence that a nice guy will bet on good relationships who can help end the cycle. Nice guys will continue to feel stuck and alone.

As described, nice guys consistently build co-dependent relationships from their internal toxic shame and avoidance pathology. They associate their well-being by fusing their relationships with their identity and emotional center. Nice guys are incredibly stubborn about changing from these unhealthy relational patterns because they built their individuality upon appeasement rituals towards others. These patterns ALWAYS end poorly for everyone involved. It is a cycle of constant unhappiness and unmet expectations, fed by a foundation of covert contracts and toxic guilt.

Nice guys choose these relational habits because they are familiar. These patterns are usually an extension of an unhealthy relationship with their mother. Typically, a nice guy received attention from their mother by attempting to address her complaints co-dependently, evading her and his own boundaries. In response, a nice guy could develop an unhealthy resentment and rejection of his father and try to be an “anti-father”, creating a disassociative “anti-hero” theology. This leads a nice guy to choose a romantic partner who will always complain and be angry, so he has someone he can get attention and affirmation from in an unhealthy way, like his mother. If the nice boy expected both of their parents to be angry, the nice guy would also expect his partner to be angry all the time as well. Sometimes, nice guys will choose completely shallow “intimate relationships” to avoid conflict, but the feeling of emptiness inside and a desire to fill it never disappears. These parent-based projections permutate their dysfunctional relationships and prevent nice guys from getting the intimacy they need and crave. This leads them to lash out and become addicted to pornography, alcohol, drugs, work, and alternative relationships.

Nice Guys are stubbornly committed to their losing relationship theology. The less their niceness works, the more they do it. Nice guys will keep doing more of the same, hoping their relationships will change and improve, but they never do. Despite the endless sacrifice and scapegoating, the hungry beast of abusive relationships is never satisfied by niceness and appeasement. Placing your hope in another depraved human will destroy the soul. Nice guys fall into a bottomless imposter syndrome-based depression that causes them to freeze like a deer in headlights.

Nice guys fail to understand they are not a victim. They are co-creating these relationships that are not satisfying to anyone and generating constant anxiety and pain around them. It is like a house on fire, and they are shouting for help while they kick kindling into the fire, and the fire consumes everyone who comes to their aid. They will see themselves as hopeless victims in these toxic relationships, and act as such, failing to see their own responsibility and culpability. Therefore, the cycle continues until everything breaks.

Solution

Wake up! STOP! Take ownership. Take responsibility.

Realize the patterns you have created in your own life. Own it and realize that stopping these patterns will scare almost everyone, both your healthy and unhealthy relationships. This is okay. We are triaging the patient and identifying your failing relationships. It will be hard to reject the patterns that got you every relationship in the past but have courage. You may not know what courage feels like, but it feels like being born again into an abundant vast world. You should feel liberation as you stand on your feet and contain the chaos and endless cycle of violence against those you love. Step out in faith and believe you are worth it.

A simple exercise is to outline the most critical relationships in your life. Now document how those relationships are damaged and how you helped contribute to that damage. Be objective and not emotional. Next, reprioritize the list according to those you can reconcile and restore quickly. These relationships will be somewhat healthy relationships that model grace, forgiveness, and generosity (the things you want in your relationships). A good tell is if you have experienced previous reconciliation in these relationships.

Don’t engage in relationships that have “faux reconciliation.” An easy signal of fake reconciliation is people who hold stuff against you and view your relationship as a stand-off between adversaries or tit-for-tat business relationship. These are unhealthy and should be at the bottom of the list. Let’s get some easy wins first. For healthy relationships, be the first to reach out and be direct about what you want to talk about. Be kind in the conversation yet straightforward on how you have wronged them and wish to correct the record. Suggest new boundaries between you both to keep a healthy relationship and rebuild. You need to trust that people will bet on the new confident you.

Your goal should be redemption towards healthy relationships. This will feel different without co-dependency and unhealthy attachment; however, these will be the best versions of these relationships you have ever seen. Redeeming an unhealthy relationship will be better than what you are experiencing today. 100% guaranteed.

Unhealthy Partners

Read more

Over the past two weeks, I’m humbled that a considerable number of people contacted me about my friendship and courage series. I’m deeply moved and thankful I can be a part of your life. My series started as a passion project as an outlet for my internal dialogue, and it’s amazing to see so many individuals thrive and transform their lives for the better after reading my words. This has grown beyond a therapeutic exercise to a movement that has touched thousands of lives. The Holy Spirit is at work in ways I cannot understand, but I am grateful for this adventure. I’m thankful to the person who pushed me to start this Substack. He knows who he is. 🙏

This week, I went on my buddy Sevan’s podcast with Andrew Hiller to discuss my recent series. Our extended conversation covered numerous subjects, from culture, faith, politics, and family (we actually didn’t get to AI).

As Sevan calls me in this interview, “Pastor Ginn” outlines the importance of friends, self-respect, courage, masculinity, Christianity, marriage, and love. Our dialog connected the power of social connections and self-respect as the means to heal our society, create human flourishing, and eternalize a culture that values freedom and community. At the end of my interview, we examined my journey through life and my walk to become a faithful follower of Christ, which gave me the resiliency to learn these hard lessons and challenge myself. I tell stories of victory over pain and reconciliation over heartache that would shock the secular world (Selah). I share lessons from history that you can utilize today to inspire you that hope and courage is always available to the right heart and mind who wants to grab it.

Enjoy!

Below is an outline that links directly to different discussion segments.

1. Catchup and introductions (0:00)

2. Renaissance man and overview of my courage and “nice guy” series (5:24)

3. Overview of the friendship series (14:39)

4. The difference between friend love, family love, and romantic love (19:17)

5. Friendships that changed history (22:10)

6. Raising good kids (28:32)

7. Sevan’s great friendship stories (29:17)

8. What is a soul and a spirit? (32:32)

9. Saving a friend after a divorce (35:43)

10. FDR’s best friend (37:59)

11. Be intentional with who you have in your life (41:36)

12. Confident men versus weak men (44:56)

13. Last time I said sorry (48:05)

14. Microwave relationships to protect yourself (50:32)

15. Boundaries (56:41)

16. Don’t judge people by their private conversations (1:03:43)

17. Sevan’s stories of invading someone else’s boundaries (1:06:10)

18. Sexual identity and our culture (1:11:08)

19. How we got cultural absurdism (1:14:38)

20. Don’t fool yourself; everyone needs a god (1:18:21)

21. Why our culture dehumanizes and hunts for sins (1:20:18)

22. John Adams, his wife, and atheism (1:25:42)

23. You are ChatGPT with a soul (1:29:19)

24. Christianity and diversity (1:29:48)

25. America needs to win for the world (1:39:16)

26. Thoughts on Trump (1:42:22)

27. Forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration (1:51:30)

28. Have I been in a fight (1:56:01)

29. My romantic life and why I live this way (1:57:58)

30. Book recommendations (1:59:35)

31. Why do I write (2:03:59)

32. What do I want to do with my life (2:06:29)

33. My discipleship and restoration stories (2:08:04)

34. My ultimate goal is love, truth, and community (2:11:08)

35. Pastor Ginn and goodbyes (2:13:16)

Side Note

I refreshed “Courage is a New Birth” (Published on May 30th). There was a versioning error in the scheduled email. You can read the updated version below:

Three films influenced my life the most, “Band of Brothers,” “V for Vendetta”, and “Fight Club”. Tyler Durden changed my perspective on how we let the world exploit us and how our own perceived agency is driven by other factors that we overlook, from people pleasing to economic systems to political systems to religious systems. We often think we are in control, and in reality, we are out of control and in possession of someone else’s whims. What we believe is a decision we make is a hangover of other influences we are blind to. Some of the biggest blinders that alter our behavior are good life-giving ideas or principles that turn to death-spiraling idols, like how capitalism can lead to materialism or faith can lead to an oppressive cult. All lies are fractures of truth. For a lie to take hold, it can’t and won’t be completely ridiculous. As the snake said to Adam and Eve, “Are you sure God said that?”. Durden’s radical behavior and quixotic philosophy force people to ask, “Do I know who I am?”

Durden’s rebellious and semi-absurdist philosophy opened my eyes to the fact that others told me to follow frameworks and principles they or I didn’t understand. These secular orthodox normies imposed rules that enabled their power while wrapping it in banal morality. “This is just what we do” or “This is the right way to live”. Durden calls out the absurdity of the lies we tell ourselves to excuse our behavior, hide from responsibility, and obscure who we actually are. Durden is, in his own way, radically responsible, direct, and courageous. He models “radical candor”, “directness”, or “integrity” in both a liberating and frightening way. To Durden, living free and being who you are is embracing chaos against the system you submitted to and mentally imprisoned you. In rebellious chaos, you find who you really are. Choosing to rebel is deciding to be bold and courageous. Following Tyler Durden means contesting the world’s disenfranchising systems and choosing the life you want to live fearlessly. To Durden, this required the philosophical death of the old self and a rebirth of a new self. To Durden, living courageously means killing the old “nice guy” and being reborn as who you actually are, reconstructing on a solid foundation.

Durden sounds scary to most Christians, but this is short-sighted and naive. An idea’s or claim’s validity is measured on its merits, not just based on the author’s standing. This is called the “genetic fallacy.” There is a reason why Fight Club is one of the most popular movies of all time - the message resonates with something in us. For me, Durden’s framework “red-pilled” (before that was even a word) me from a secular humanist worldview to a Christian worldview. When most traditionally raised Christians hear Durden’s statements, they think of a rebellion FROM the faith, but mine was TO the faith.

When I became a Christian, I saw how I had been influenced in ways I did not see and chose to believe baseless and false narratives about the world. Like the characters in Fight Club, I had to rebuild my worldview and challenge my upbringing and beliefs. I had to kill my old self and embrace the new one God had given me on the Cross by the Spirit. I had to pull out the weeds and viruses that were not part of my identity in Christ. I had to refashion my identity towards Christ and listen to what He said I was and who He wanted me to be. You cannot form a new identity by yourself; it must be done in the community of others, with God and people. This why Scripture regularly calls us an “image bearer” and to “glorify” His will (1 Corinthians 15:49, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Proverbs 27:19, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:24, 1 John 3:2). These are all aspects of reflection of other people. This is why Jesus was sent as a man, so we can see how a fully human man can live a completely holy life (Hebrews 4:15). We need a human role model to reflect so we know how to follow God’s will (1 John 4:2-3, Philippians 2:5-8). Identity formation is essential to the Christian life. It fundamentally means knowing who you are and living courageously as who you are, which is maximized in Christ (Colossians 2:9-10, Romans 6:6, 1 Corinthians 6:17).

As I started to grow in my faith, I was told by a lukewarm Baptist church in Texas how I had to dress, talk, work, and live. Liberty wasn’t in their lexicon. Yet, Christ is the final victor over this world and every human institution. Within Him is true liberty (Galatians 5:1). Becoming a Christian turned into more control over my life under my submission to God and freedom from submission to the world and people. It was liberation from my old self to a new self. Graciously, this Baptist church’s secular efforts masked as faithfulness massively failed. Before I was a Christian, I was submissive and docile. I never got in trouble and had straight A’s, as a Chinese father expected. After I became a Christian, I was rebellious against my secular upbringing and assertive for my newfound faith in Christ. I developed new passions and opinions that were bold and distinct. I had a new sense of self, purpose, and hope.

Humorously, this ended up leading to a mohawk for two years, teaching rock climbing, gauging my ears, and playing in a metal band while at the same time being the only undergraduate in my class being published in an academic journal, attending two seminaries at once, and graduating from two different schools at my university (one in business and one in philosophy) at the top of my class. Fight Club was part of my journey to help me see that I could build the life I wanted and that I didn’t have to fit a particular pattern someone else drew for me.

It is evident from the film and reading his statements that Durden was an extreme and sinful expression of living a free and courageous life, which is his character’s point. His intense nature and decisive dialogue drive people to change, and Durden idolizes change above all else. Most of humanity is stuck in a Matrix, and Durden wants to set people free. The only way is through a radical approach. He wants people to be their authentic selves, whether good or bad. Durden was determined to the point of “death” to push his friends and followers toward liberation from the constructs of this world. He wanted them to be men of courage who determine destiny and aren’t victims of it.

Ironically, Durden is a violent walking contradiction, an authentic expression of himself. He is both a narcissist and awkwardly sacrificial to his followers. He is weirdly disciplined and consistent with his identity, even if that is illogical or immoral. Durden is a fatalist but for a reason (another contradiction). He wants to destroy everything but then wants to rebuild it. He is chaotic and destructive, yet he remakes his followers into better men. At the film’s end, his followers are more confident, assertive, have self-respect, and take action. They killed the depravity of the “self-esteem movement.” They replaced it with self-respect, which is correctly and accurately viewing your strengths and weaknesses. He enfranchised men to be who they were supposed to be and sought to destroy the world’s disenfranchisement. Durden is no Jesus, but he is like a judge from the book of Judges, profoundly broken but useful.

This peculiar behavior is the point of Tyler Durden. What is “controlled” and “normalized” are just forms of violence we have accepted. Why have we accepted it? It isn’t entirely clear to anyone, but we just walk along the plank. This isn’t what God wants and isn’t what humanity needs. Every brilliant moment in history is an extension of some type of crazy. Every scientist, artist, or entrepreneur that defined history took a risk and had plenty of people say they were absurd. Life is better lived while driving your life rather than submitting to what others say isn’t possible or “good.” God did the impossible from Exodus to Revelation. Don’t be Israel when they are about to enter the Promiseland or wander the desert and lose hope despite all He did for them. Believing in the impossible starts with proper identity formation and self-respect. Tying Durden’s concepts of individualism underneath a religious framework can be liberating and freeing. By themselves, they are nihilistic and destructive. In the context of theism, it is a modern emancipation proclamation.

My “Tyler Durden story” isn’t a story of rebellion for the sake of rebellion. It is not a story of rebellion towards Durden-style absurdism but an uprising from the humanist world to a God-centered worldview. It was a revolution away from our assumed reality of secularism and culturally nurtured self-destructive priors of shame and appeasement. My Tyler Durden story is a story of courage and self-respect to stand up for my faith and to take action for the life He wants, and I want. I saw who I was in Christ and embraced the long journey ahead. I was reborn into a new man, and the old had died. You don’t pour fresh wine into old wineskins but into new ones (Matthew 9:16-17). I joyfully stepped out and let God paint a much more colorful and bold life than I ever thought possible.

On my last birthday, I was gifted the autumn leaves shirt Durden wore in the movie for being an honest, genuine, and authentic follower of Christ. I was born again and lived as my true self in Christ, unapologetically so, regardless of the world’s pressures. Courage functions like a new birth, feeling like a resurrection and a second chance at life. That is what courage does to you. The old has passed, and the new has come. Courage makes you feel like a new person who has just found a vast and abundant renewed world. Let this be the beginning of your new birth rising from shame, appeasement, people-pleasing, and the rat race of modern secular woke life. Happy rebirth to “the new you,” restored with self-respect, courage, valor, and fearlessness. Happy Rebirthday.

I will be continuing my No More Mr. Nice Guy series. My next post will be on relationships and “Jesus wasn’t nice”, so please subscribe.

“I read your Don’t Be a Nice Guy post and felt extremely convicted. I saw I wasn’t standing up for myself and letting others rule over my life. I wrote your advice down on Post-it notes and applied it at work. It worked! I felt liberated, and I actually got what I wanted. I’m praying that God will convict me further and change me, ‘Lord, I don’t want to be a nice guy anymore. I want to be a good guy.’” - a young man who attends my church

This is the second segment in my series on how to rescue you or others from the nice guy syndrome. The first part of the series introduced "What is a nice guy?" and the nice guy's foundational beliefs. Several aspects of this treatise are inspired by the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy. You can listen to it for free here.

Thank you to all my readers who made this past two weeks a record for my writing. My article on friendship and the first part of this series drove more views than all of my articles on COVID combined. The personal notes from men all around the world were truly inspiring. Over the past week, I met several men over coffee who wanted to discuss friendship and masculinity. They found reassurance and conviction in my writing and wanted a way out.

Be courageous and don’t give up. Other people are fighting with you and for you. Love the nice guys in your life. I certainly love mine and I care for all of them. This entire series is meant to help in a kind (but not nice) way. I’ve walked in your shoes before. Have hope and do not despair.

Before we start the second part of my series (The Distorted Self), I want to address one of the critiques of my first composition. I received feedback that it was “overly secular.” There is a reason for this, and I have a strategy:

1. Starting with natural theology -The first part of my series will cover natural theology (what is) over special revelation (should be). These are things that are true in nature and are independent of faith. To illustrate this point, the Bible doesn’t tell you how to build a chair, but chairs exist. This is a category mistake.

2. Relevancy - Our culture is consumed with secularism and scientism. I’m writing with the language and perspective of our time so that this will resonate broadly (1 Corinthians 9:20, Galatians 3:28, Acts 17)

3. Misunderstanding within the Church - “Big Eva” has redefined much of Scripture to perpetuate nice guy syndrome. Words and phrases from The Bible are falsely seized and create implicit mental and cultural debt in our minds in favor of the nice guy syndrome. Christian nice guys associate their faith with being nice. This is a false supposition I reject.

4. Hard pill to swallow - The nice guy disease is so formidable to eliminate that nice guys invent endless excuses to hide, lie about their desires, and perpetuate their idol worship of approval. Moving a man’s emotional center from people to God requires a sledgehammer.

Christian nice guys have made people and affirmation their emotional center. Their “faith” is truly based on unhealthy co-dependency, not Jesus. Shaking that idol loose is arduous and feels like an earthquake to their identity, but when they do, they will gain the confidence, respect, joy, and identity they seek, which can only come from Christ. I will write an additional fourth segment on “Christian nice guys” and elaborate further on these matters as the final post in this series.

The Distorted Self

When I was in high school, believe it or not, I was voted the nicest guy in school. Two years in a row, actually! My teams across my companies would be shocked to hear that fact today (Surprise, and don’t use it against me). This “honor” was given to me before I became a Christian. My faith and the church set me on a journey to view myself as worthy and to stop being nice, because God says I am worthy, and my approval comes from Him, not men.

If I can kill my nice guy syndrome, so can you. It is time to have the determination and courage to fix it. You can’t feel the love and care from others you want unless you know who you are and your identity. Other people want to love you, but you don’t love yourself. Stop being impressionable and gain trust in your own agency. Develop self-respect and walk with dignity. That is the focus of this part of my series. I want you to become a good man, the opposite of a nice guy.

Let’s break down how nice guys distort reality and themselves, leading to a constant sense of brokenness, shame, rejection, and destructive neurotic behavior.

Toxic Shame

The blood and self-destructive pathogen within a nice guy’s heart is toxic shame. Nice guys believe their needs are important enough to be met and fulfilled. Still, they try to satisfy them secretly with manipulation and covert behavior due to toxic shame. Because of unspoken expectations and their faux nice behavior, their needs are viewed by other people as not necessary or even noticeable. Nice guys are scared to stand up for their needs, and they believe their needs should be evident by their good works and being nice. Consequentially, nice guys view themselves as unimportant because others ignore their wants and desires; they think they are only worthy of shame.

Nice guys prostrate to the point their soul feels like it’s dying, creating a deep hole filled with anger and shame. Nice guys follow a simple pattern of self-destruction:

1. “I have needs that are not being met, probably because I am bad.”

2. “I have to be good to get my needs met in the way I want.”

3. “I have to do everything well to satisfy everyone else so that I get my needs met.”

They shut out opportunities to make themselves happy and fulfilled by believing their lack of self-respect narrative, replacing it with endless people-pleasing and compliance. Nice guys expect other people to satisfy their needs because they are “good boys” and “did the right thing”. When it doesn't happen, nice guys become resentful and frustrated. Nice guys try to earn what they want through approval and appeasement, which never pans out.

Nice guys constantly strain to manage their anxiety by doing everything right so nobody gets mad, criticizes them, or leaves them. This is a consequence of toxic shame developing in childhood that carries on into adulthood. The anxiety about themselves is formed from the lack of ability to move on from the past and learn from mistakes. Toxic shame prevents nice guys from having a positive and healthy view of themselves. They grew up believing they were unlovable, defective, inadequate, or worthless. From this detrimental mental foundation that resists positive reinforcement (compliments, praise, and love), nice guys struggle and regularly stumble to generate a healthy and redemptive sense of self-worth in adulthood.

Nice guys will gravitate towards broken and immature relationships that need constant attention and fixing because they know they can gain more approval from unhealthy individuals than healthy ones. The unfortunate but true reality is that you can never fulfill the expectations of impetuous and immature adults, so nice guys are destined to fail. Narcissistic and controlling people are drawn to nice guys to perpetuate their cycle of appeasement and compliance. Nice guys want to submit from shame and inadequacy, while the dominant personality desires to control and achieve comfort. This leads to nice guys feeling increasingly inadequate and shameful. The malevolent feeling of inadequacy prevents them from changing their situation or creates decision fatigue. Nice guys feel stuck and incapable of change. They believe that change is impossible and they deserve their situation, not seeing that they made the problem in the first place and have a way out. Nice guys don’t respect themselves, so others don’t respect them. Nice guys constantly appease and debase themselves despite immoral treatment and abuse. They hate their situation but also hate any reminders from others that being stuck is their choice.

Nice guys try to compensate and hide their inadequacy by doing everything “right” and appearing “above board”. They hope no one ever finds out how inadequate they are at winning an impossible situation with approval-first, self-effacing relationships.

Solution

Get out of your own head. Journal. Pray. Say what you are thinking and feeling out loud to yourself. Don’t bottle it up, or it has nowhere to go but down into your existing pit of self-despair. A good test is to write out what you want to believe and what you actually believe. If your wants are always your beliefs, you have a distorted self-image. Accepting what is true about the world is independent of your self-view and self-worth. If both are identical, something is wrong with how you view yourself. A clear mind acknowledges the fundamental conflict between what you want to believe and reality. You can’t fix what you can’t see (or choose to ignore).

An excellent journaling exercise is analyzing your behavior in a hard situation as objectively and truthfully as possible. What did you think, feel, or believe about that past situation? Is it even accurate historically? Observe these things without harsh judgment. Just observe and say, “Interesting.” Reframe the situation by asking, “Would I say these things about my best friend? Would I say this about my partner? Would I say things about other people?” Lovingly remind yourself that you’re not just a bad person but also a lovable, imperfect human being. Don’t defend yourself; just accept yourself. Defending will restart the cycle of shame you are trying to stop.

Find safe people to show your true self to. It is masculine and good to be vulnerable. Surround yourself with loving, supportive, positive people. Negative people will feed your shame, and you won’t make progress. Negative and never-repentant people should be removed from your life until they want to change. Make no exceptions. You aren’t ready to carry another burden yet.

A False Reality of Victimization

The highest life objective for nice guys is to have a peaceful and stress-free life where all their needs and goals are met through subversive and covert contracts with no conflict and continuous approval from others. In reality, nice guys can’t achieve their dream because this contradicts what they learned in childhood, and their actions build resentment towards others ending with self-caused victimization. This creates a self-destructive neurosis which includes a weighty everpresent helplessness while constantly seeking to escape it by getting validation that they are fixing other people’s problems and ignoring their desires. At the same time, nice guys refuse to take ownership and responsibility for their situation. It is a false reality and a tragic prison they locked themselves into.

Read more

In college, I was a young Christian in a hostile world. I had left my family’s metaphysics and lack of religion behind. I attended a conventional secular liberal university. My family was neither accepting nor interested in my Christian faith, and my university believed in humanistic therapeutic deism. I was a spiritual orphan. All of my political and religious views changed overnight when I entered college and it went the opposite direction of most people my age. I didn’t have a spiritually accepting home or environment. Through grace and providence, I didn’t know I was about to start my journey to become a free and independent man. Through the hostility of my surroundings, I began to think for myself, and I got one of the most remarkable pieces of advice in my life:

Due to forces outside my control, I was forced into a position to defend what I believed to the people I loved and cared for. I wasn’t in friendly territory but deep behind enemy lines. I had to find a way to survive, socialize, grow, and stand up for myself while maintaining relationships with people I differed with. I had to kill my “nice guy” to become a man of courage and principle. I had to become a good man.

Our culture and society heavily impress and teach each generation, particularly boys, to be “nice”. What was helpful to children who don’t have profound maturity or serious intelligence is now overapplied and utilized by adults, particularly men. Men in our culture today act like children and are incapable of facing the harsh reality of the world. They never transition from the playground rules of “being nice” to get what you want to the fact of humanity’s fallen and broken condition. Due to mismatched expectations and lack of agency, “nice guys” have become deeply unhappy pushovers who accomplish little to nothing. Being the social definition of “nice” robs a man of his life energy and vitality because they operate from a place of internalized fear and distorted failure. They don’t understand why they are not living the life they want based on what they have been told. This breeds exhaustion, a sense of defeat, and hopelessness that expresses itself in addictions and self-destructive pathologies like video games, pornography, and drugs. Nice guys have been given lousy tooling, advice, and deeply flawed intellectual frameworks of self-loathing, approval, passiveness, and self-effacing behavior as the means to success instead of confidence, courage, masculinity, and integrity.

I want to liberate men from the “nice guy syndrome” and have them discover who they are, be proud that they are uniquely designed and gifted, and stop the psychological damage of idolizing approval and manipulation through passivity and compliance. The tricky thing about thwarting these behaviors and embracing goodness over niceness is the brutal simplicity of the first step - stand up for yourself, have courage and be responsible. Making the decision to act is the most challenging part, but the actual outcome of the decision tends to be small. It is a significant juncture because you are deciding to no longer embrace the never-ending pathological cycle of being nice and seeking constant approval. You are finally being understood and accepted for your decisions and stopping the cycle of violence against yourself and those you love.

At the end of this series, I hope you stop being a “nice guy” or disciple others to stop being “nice guys”. Help men choose to become “good men” instead. I still do this daily for other men in life and I don’t regret it even when the seasons get hard. The outcome is so rewarding that any hardship or storm is worth the wait and pain for another brother-in-arms to become who they are meant to be.

I will be pulling from some of my favorite resources - “No More Mr. Nice Guy”, Enneagram, Three Neurotic Solutions, Dennis Prager, and The Bible. No More Mr. Nice Guy has inspired a lot of my series. It is by far the most concise on how to kill the “nice guy” quickly and easily, but the book has moral shortcomings that I won’t address in my series. I will also be pulling from my seminary(s) training, disciplining over 100 men since I became a Christian, being discipled by wise and righteous men continuously since I was 19, helping plant two churches on opposite sides of the country, helping save countless marriages, assisting divorcees in remarrying, and reading original source work from every significant philosophical stream to impact our culture. I also read parenting books for fun despite not having kids, which is weird until you see that we are all encountering more boys than men today.

Series Outline

This will be a beast of a treatise, so I broke it up into several sections I will publish over the coming days.

1. Introduction and Core Ideas

   1. What Is The “Nice Guy Syndrome”?

   2. Approval Idolization - Desires a constant need for approval creates a self-destructive pathology

   3. Conflict Avoidant - Idolizing the approval of others means problems are avoided and bitterly unresolved

   4. Giving with Hidden Motives - Generosity with strings leading to constant disappointment and exhaustion

   5. Unspoken Contracts and Rules - Not expressing what they need or want based on fear

2. The Distorted Self

   1. Toxic Shame - Toxic guilt fuels the constant need for approval from others and a lack of self-respect

   2. False Reality of Victimization - A deep desire for a world that will never be real and consequently feels like a victim when it doesn’t occur

   3. Poverty Mindset - Doesn’t make decisions based on limitless growth and abundance but fear and approval

   4. Hides Feelings and Faults - Ashamed of being fully known and believes he is a fraud

   5. Fear of Failure - Failures are seen as a sign of being a fraud over learning and growing

3. Broken Relationships

   1. Stubborn Destructive Relationship Cycles - Chooses a cycle of appeasement based on fear of abandonment and creates failed relationships

   2. Unhealthy Partners - Chooses intimate relationships that are emotionally unavailable and will lead to self-destruction

   3. Broken Boundaries - Inability to assert himself well without hurting others and fails at setting up boundaries to protect loved ones

   4. Fails at Reconciliation - Avoids conflict from toxic shame to the point of damaging healthy relationships

   5. Obsessed Self-Righteous Fixers - Desires unhealthy relationships that need fixing and refuses to take care of themselves

4. Jesus Wasn't Nice

   1. “Nice” means what? - The etymology of the word “nice”

   2. Kindness crushes Niceness - Nice never appears in the Bible; Kindness is distinct and superior to being nice

   3. Nice Jesus is a Weak Jesus - Nice will keep people in their sins; kindness will liberate people toward God

   4. Be a Good Guy - Don't go overboard; love should be your guide

   5. A New Hope - Liberate yourself and enjoy abundant life

What Is A “Nice Guy”?

Nice guys appear moderately successful and well put together by cultural standards. They seem to have a perfect life, but following a self-effacing solution is the source of that perfection. Nice guys believe they will get the success, attention, and affection they desire by getting more people and more people to approve of their actions with increasing doses of self-destructive compliance and submission, ending with resentment, anger, confusion, and exhaustion. Nice guys know they are not good enough by their internalized benchmarks and standards, but they cannot healthily express their disappointment. They hide and compartmentalize their life based on fear of anger from others, rejection, and abandonment. This makes them internally frustrated, enraged, and dissatisfied with their situation. At the same time, they also feel like a victim, powerless, impotent, and hopeless. They fear standing up for themselves because their operating system is based on approval and self-flagellation. As soon as they express confidence and responsibility, they believe they will lose control of the situation and potentially be abandoned. They are terrified to speak up because they will be “found out” as some sort of “fraud”. Nice guys won’t say what they think and defend themselves due to potential criticism that makes them feel like an undeserving fraud. They are fearful of not meeting up to cultural expectations and never-ending social status objectives. They don’t take risks and bet on themselves because they fear they will muck it up when it matters most at the finish line and be known as a failure by others. Nice guys are afraid of actual success.

In their mind, the means of being an alpha male (what they want) is to be a beta male (what they are doing). They are a real-life “Free Guy” - a purposeless existence awash in bitter generosity and blind appeasement without even a distinct name.

The following are traits I have seen in nice guys. Of course, we can see ourselves in all of these traits. Our culture has pounded into everyone an idolization of niceness over goodness, honor, and duty. Not all of these traits are wrong if controlled and moderated. The problem arises when nice guys find their identity, energy, and source of meaning in these traits.

I would focus on how many traits resonate with you to tell if you are a nice guy. If you have multiple “holy crap!” moments, you probably suffer from “nice guy syndrome”. If all of these traits apply to you, don’t lose hope and don’t worry. Curing the illness is much easier than you think.

Approval Above All Else

Nice guys are fundamentally approval-seekers. Everything they do is aimed at finding approval. Approval is the gasoline in their engine and the idol of their souls. Approval from others provides meaning and purpose like a north star for their heart.

From this prototype, they gravitate toward unhealthy people who need fixing to gain more approval at a lower entry point. They hunt down problems in others’ lives to fix them, enabling consistently irresponsible and immature behavior in others. This enablement encourages a downward cycle of abuse towards nice guys as they repeatedly see themselves as deficient and inadequate to fully “fix” the problem. Abusers perpetuate the cycle as they get rewarded with more approval and compliance with each outburst from nice guys. This implosion in trust and respect creates more opportunities for nice guys to receive validation via appeasement and approval from abusers.

Nice guys tend to focus less on relationships that don’t need constant fixing and are healthy because it exposes where they find their value. They evaluate their worth based on how much approval they are getting from their performance, so healthy relationships get less care than abusive ones. Sometimes, nice guys will cause damage to healthy relationships because they don’t think they are worthy of something that doesn’t need fixing or approval. The association between performance and approval is particularly strong in marriage and towards women.

When the approval fades, nice guys get troubled and uncertain. Their world is turned upside, and they lose focus. Nice guys will keep at it until they finally break down, have no energy, and can’t give anymore. They are dazed and feel incapable of finding reconciliation and healing.

Solution

Who cares?! That’s right, you don’t even know who cares or doesn’t, so stop and see what happens. When you stop seeking approval, you will learn not many people will or do care about you anyways. You were bending over backward for people who don’t care about you but are narcissists and domineering personalities looking for easy targets. You are wasting your time and energy. Learn to care less about what others think of you.

Those who care about you will not take advantage of your approval above all else desires. Those who do care will sacrifice for you and seek your own interests and desires over their own. A hallmark of a loving, healthy relationship is asking for your preferences or being kind in their correction when you unnecessarily seek their approval.

A simple way to stop seeking the approval of others is to write down regularly what you know to be true about yourself or affirmations from trusted relationships. Put these affirmations on your phone, note cards, or personal alerts. These quotes should be direct and straightforward like “I am good and strong”, “I am valued”, “I can be myself without fear of not being accepted”, or “You are important and loved”.

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In life, what can be seen as ordinary and everyday is much rarer than you think. Water is abundantly available on Earth. Crisp air and beautiful nature on Earth seem never-ending. Our sun provides limitless bounty, but we only know life exists on this planet. Our galaxy alone has 30 billion trillion stars without measurable or observable life; we are one star with abundant life. Water was discovered outside our planet, 12.8 billion light-years away. Reaching it would take longer than the Earth has existed. Never underestimate that what appears relatively common to us is actually impossibly rare.

Friendship is one aspect of life viewed as common as air or water that is truly rare and precious. Friendship is one of those life gifts that no one studies or investigates. We see it as ordinary and plebeian. We pass over hard facts about the rarity of life due to the abundance of the world around us and get easily distracted by the natural envious nature of humanity.

In our modern epoch, friendship is a lost art missing from all of our lives. Our culture has forgotten the purpose and meaning of friendship. Tragically, our society idolizes romantic love to the point of human actualization. Media pitches romance as the culmination of meaning and purpose. Our civilization misses the mark on the profound nature of man and woman. It replaces companionship with shallow movies and books that fantasize us into an envious doldrum and depression.

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History shows us that our current “friendship-depression” is a contemporary phenomenon, and we can change it. Great men and women in history are often defined by their friendships more than their family or marriage. For their lives, success and impact were independent of their spouse. A good spouse always helps, and a bad spouse can be an impossible anchor to carry. Still, several great men and women in history had terrible marriages, which is tragic and should be avoided. What pushed and motivated them to accomplish great things for humanity is still available to us today - good friends. Good marriages should be a priority because family formation is a blessing; however, it is insufficient to do great things in life and the world. Good friends are how great people accomplish extraordinary things that seem impossible at the time. Today, we take it for granted as if it was like clean air and bountiful Earth.

You just call out my name

And you know wherever I am

I'll come running to see you again

Winter, spring, summer or fall

All you have to do is call

And I'll be there

Yes I will

You've got a friend 

James Taylor

What is a friend?

To start a conversation about friendship, we need to define what best describes a friend. Defining a true friend is frankly more complex than defining what romance is. Romantic love (“eros”) is so powerful that it overwhelms us and drives us crazy, making it easier to spot. Friend-type of love (“philia”) is more subtle and builds over time into a deep bond that lasts decades and through numerous trials. Because the horizon is longer but the outcome is more remarkable, several of us have yet to even try to find a good friend or know how to start.

I define friendship in the following categories.

Telepathy - Friends know intimately how each other thinks and can share their emotions and thoughts despite being miles and miles away. Friends didn't aim to share the same mind, but it came organically. With this similar mindset comes an implicit trust between each other, allowing them to do life side-by-side.

• “You can tell how strong the friendship is by the silence that envelops it. Lovers and spouses may talk frequently about their ‘relationship,’ but friends tend to let their regard for one another speak for itself or let others point it out.” - Andrew Sullivan

• “It has been said that a person's religion is best defined not by what he says he believes but simply by what he actually does. Equally, it could be said that one's friends are simply those people with whom one spends one's life. Period. Anything else is a form of rationalization.” - Andrew Sullivan

  

Companionship - Friends walk with you even if it is inconvenient. They sacrifice for you and choose to be uncomfortable because they want to be with you as a partner in life.

• “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero

• ​​”What draws people to be friends is that they see the same truth. They share it.” - CS Lewis

• “A critical social institution, as an ennobling moral experience, as an immensely delicate but essential interplay of the virtues required to sustain a fully realized human being.” - Andrew Sullivan

Mission alignment - Friends work with you on your mission in life. They let you take the lead, but operate as an advisor or guide by your side. They prevent you from falling down and help you stand back up.

• “How beautiful it is to find someone who asks for nothing but your company.” - Brigitte Nicole

• “When friendships are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest things we can know.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

• “Things are never quite as scary when you've got a best friend.” -Bill Watterson

• “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” -Arnold H. Glasgow

Intimacy and Trust - A superpower of friendship is being deeply known without judgment for what brings you shame. They enjoy your company and the rawness of your identity. You can “let your hair down” with your friends. They fully see who you are and where you are going. To a friend, your company alone is worth the time.

• “Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not…Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.” - CS Lewis

• “A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” - Jim Morrison

• “Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.” - Vincent Van Gogh

• “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” - Elbert Hubbard

• “A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce.” - Francis Bacon

Edification - Friends push us to be better versions of ourselves. A good friend will tell you the truth even if it hurts. A best friend will tell you the truth. They will correct you and you won’t even notice. Friends make us better every day. Friend love is like taking adrenalin for free for the rest of your life.

• “The capacity for friendship is God’s way of apologizing for our families.” - Jay McInerney

• “Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” - Amy Poehler

• “My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.” - George R.R. Martin

• “A friend is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.” - Frank Crane

Enjoyment - Friends bring us immense joy and fun. This happiness is not contingent on works or gifts but by simply being who you are with each other.

• “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” - CS Lewis

• “Friends are medicine for a wounded heart, and vitamins for a hopeful soul.” - Steve Maraboli

• “Life is nothing without friendship.” - Cicero

  

Additive love - One of the most amazing superpowers of friend-love is its additive and generous nature, while eros love is the opposite. Eros is focused on the relationship between two people and is supposed to be exclusive. Friend-love wants to be shared and to be additive to others’ lives. When two mutual friends become friends themselves, it is one of the greatest joys in life. Everyone feels more joy and appreciation for each other. Everyone gets better. Friend-love operates like the concept of infinity - unlimited, endless, without bound. This is why Jesus came as a friend to humanity.

• “Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth, if only the newcomer is qualified to be a real friend.” - CS Lewis

• “A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” -Henry van Dyke

• “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” - Elie Wiesel

Deromanticization of friendship

Friends pursue each other as if running the race of life side-by-side. Romantic partners seek to live life face-to-face, longing for each other to build a life together. The intimacy you can have with a good or best friend is much more expansive than the relationship itself. While the power of intimacy within eros fosters a deep connection to push through the pain and struggle of having a family. The power of eros is resigned chiefly to the bonds of the relationship itself. They live together through the ups and downs as each other's main priority in life.

The power of friendship and the love it brings humanity is regularly confused with eros and is enormously under-appreciated. Romance definitely includes aspects of friendship, but the boundaries of the relationship keep it from fully achieving friend-love. Friend-love is meant to feel like “additive intimacy” that is freely shared with the world, while eros love restricts its intimacy to the couple or within a home or family. Much of what people seek today in relationships is not a romantic partner but a deep and loving friend. People today expect too much from a single individual to fill the needs of both eros and philia love. We treat our romantic partners as a savior, which is deeply unfair to them. Your desire for friend-love was designed to be shared among many, not with a single person.

“The great modern enemy of friendship has turned out to be love. By love, I don’t mean the principle of giving and mutual regard that lies at the heart of friendship [but] love in the banal, ubiquitous, compelling, and resilient modern meaning of love: the romantic love that obliterates all other goods, the love to which every life must apparently lead, the love that is consummated in sex and celebrated in every particle of our popular culture, the love that is institutionalized in marriage and instilled as a primary and ultimate good in every Western child. I mean eros, which is more than sex but is bound up with sex. I mean the longing for union with another being, the sense that such a union resolves the essential quandary of human existence, the belief that only such a union can abate the loneliness that seems to come with being human, and deter the march of time that threatens to trivialize our very existence…We live in a world, in fact, in which respect and support for eros has acquired the hallmarks of a cult.” - Andrew Sullivan

Friend-love fulfills a different type of vulnerability and desire for achievement that is meant to be accomplished beyond a romantic partner. As everyone has experienced, eros messes with our brains in ways that we cannot always predict. Friend-love feels much more aligned with where we want to go in life.

“Friends will never provide what lovers provide: the ultimate resort, that safe space of repose, that relaxation of the bedsheets. But they provide something more reliable, and certainly less painful. They provide an acknowledgement not of the child within but of the adult without; they allow for an honesty which doesn’t threaten pain and criticism which doesn’t imply rejection. They promise not the bliss of the womb but the bracing adventure of the world. They do not solve loneliness, yet they mitigate it.” - Andrew Sullivan

One way to notice the difference between friend-love and intimacy is the reaction to intimacy. Friend-love doesn’t get jealous of their relationships with other people. Eros is designed to get jealous. It is often a struggle for romantic partners to accept friend-love, but this is a desire that should be restrained because the goals are fundamentally and metaphysically different.

“A woman of that sort has a hundred arts to break up her husband’s Friendships. She will quarrel with his Friends herself or, better still, with their wives. She will sneer, obstruct and lie. She does not realize that the husband whom she succeeds in isolating from his own kind will not be very well worth having; she has emasculated him.” - CS Lewis

Best friends always generate a sense of insecurity, especially male friends to wives. This should be expected and is natural, but just because it is natural does not mean it is good. Our overly romanticized culture tries to force every relationship into a box for an idol of comfort and control. Take all the opportunities you can to push through and find real friends because the reward will bring joy to everyone. CS Lewis continues,

“Nothing so enriches an erotic love as the discovery that the Beloved can deeply, truly and spontaneously enter into Friendship with the Friends you already had.”

Amen. Now, let’s look at some friendships from the past that altered history.

Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed

Lincoln and Speed were best friends from a young age and pursued much of the forming phases of life together as partners in crime. Speed is credited with getting Lincoln out of depression and encouraging him despite his faults. Speed helped Lincoln realize what he could become and how he can achieve his dreams. Both poured into each life to such a degree that they both credit each other for their wives and families.

Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley

While Speed is credited by Lincoln for setting him up for success for the rest of his life, Lincoln had a rough marriage. From mental illness to deaths in the family, Lincoln struggled in his marriage to Mary. While in the White House, Mary became good friends with Elizabeth Keckely, a former slave turned dressmaker. Her friendship with Mary helped her push through depression, a civil war, a tough marriage, and the death of her husband

CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien

Lewis and Tolkien win for the most legendary literary friendship of all time. Tolkien is credited with inspiring Lewis to embrace his creative side and help resolve some issues with his Christian faith. Lewis pushed Tolkien to write publicly and gave him confidence that he could achieve his dreams. CS Lewis wrote one of the defining books on love and friendship, and Tolkien wrote one of the greatest literature epics of all time, The Lord of the Rings. In the theme of my commentary on friendship, the Lord of the Rings movies is heavily romanticized and embraces the modern zeitgeist, which doesn't appear in the original books, and ignores the purpose of the series - good friendship will change the world.

Jesus and John

Jesus’ closest friend during His ministry on Earth was John. Out of the Twelve Disciples, John was the only disciple to be both at the transfiguration and crucifixion. John titled himself in his own gospel recording of the life of Christ as "the disciple Jesus loved." Famously at the Last Supper, John laid on Jesus' chest while dining with his friends.

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson

Madison started to become friends with Jefferson when Jefferson served as Governor of Virginia, and Madison served on The Council of State before the US Constitution. Both were political checks on each other's power. They started to get to know each other deeply because Jefferson couldn't do anything politically without Madison's consent. Madison helped rescue Jefferson's career after he had a falling out across the state. They shared a home for many years while working to establish the United States. They shared several common hobbies and exchanged notes extensively about art, culture, and science. They both retired as neighbors and established the University of Virginia. 

Near the end of Jefferson’s life, he wrote to Madison:

“The friendship which has subsisted between us, now half a century, and the harmony of our political principles and pursuits, have been sources of constant happiness to me thro' that long period…to myself you have been a pillar of support thro' life. Take care of me when dead, and be assured that I shall leave with you my last affections.”

Roosevelt and Louis McHenry Howe

The most important friend to President Roosevelt is a relatively unknown man, Louis Howe. He was called the “man behind Roosevelt”. He spoke to Roosevelt daily, and no one knew their conversation's contents. Roosevelt and Louis regularly argued with each other about politics and policy. Bucking modern beta male definitions, Louis was Roosevelt's faithful and loyal friend for decades until his death. Roosevelt trusted Louis more than anyone, including his wife. Roosevelt had a deeply broken and abusive relationship with his wife with frequent infidelity. Despite this, Louis worked with Eleanor to promote her agenda. Despite not liking him at first, Eleanor and Louis eventually became friends. When Louis died, the failures of Roosevelt’s administration can be connected to Roosevelt losing his friend who held him accountable and gave him pushback. Roosevelt wrote upon Louis’s passing, “Devoted friend, adviser and associate of the President.”

Alexander the Great and Hephaestion

Knowing each other from birth, Alexander and Hephaestion were inseparable partners in life, war, and politics. Hephaestion was second in charge and was Alexandaer’s most trusted advisor. Alexander claimed he could not be an effective king or general without Hephastion. Hephastion was the most important friend in Alexander’s life until the very end.

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

Edison and Ford have one of American history's most famous industry titan friendships. Both were deeply fond of each's intellect, business acumen, spirit of adventure, and each other's families. Ford was thrilled to have one of his heroes as one of his best friends. They prioritized visiting each other on their birthdays. They bought houses next door. They both went on vacation together regularly, and lore says their friendship started the idea of the "road trip".

Hard Work Pays Off

The hard truth for us living today is forming friendships in this culture sucks. From social media to a broken education system, our cultural institutions and civil trust have been shredded. Our ability to build authentic and trustworthy relationships is challenging, confusing, and sometimes heartbreaking. Media and American culture lie to us and tell us that the next thing, whether a purchase or a new relationship, will fix our souls and hearts. Consumerism is the dominant metaphysical theme defining romantic or friend connections. Break that by forming a deep bond with a handful of individuals. Don’t be alone with people. People are hungry to be seen and to be known.

In my life, I feel blessed and quite lucky to call a handful of men my best friends, with several more good friends. All of my friends have a wide range in duration, from a year to 12 years. All of them have different types of relationships with me and each other. Yet, the friend-love between all of us is ever-expanding and growing. My best friends push me to be a better man in all areas of life, from work to love. I push them to be better husbands and leaders. All of my best friends are the most enjoyable relationships in my life. I trust them implicitly, even when it is hard, and the future looks uncertain. For my best friends, we have a profound and rich relationship. They know everything about my past, hopes, dreams, and soul. Despite the joy of friendship, it is still hard work to stay consistent, gracious, and encouraging.

While this sounds scary or intimidating, I cannot fully describe the sense of liberation of being fully known and accepted. Knowing that you have brothers-in-arms regardless of the war you are going into or the crisis that may come gives me the courage and strength to change the world. This doesn’t mean my best friends, and I are always on awesome terms. Everyone has seasons. Life is hard, but knowing that someone can love you for just being yourself, despite your faults, and never giving up on you is one the most joyful feelings on this side of heaven.

Cultural memory is a powerful force that subconsciously changes what we believe about the past and shapes what we will do in the future. Cultural memory proposes that not all of our memories of the past are actually our own and what we believe about history is heavily influenced by others and our shared experiences.

Lockdowns were our most significant shared experience in generations that imprinted a historical decision making framework through hysteria and pain. Simultaneously, the entire world felt a COVID armageddon that impressed a government-forced shared memory that we all can relate to. Like a world war, lockdowns and COVID were a shared, simultaneously international experience.

This shared global pain will inform future decision-making patterns and we need to peel back the layers. Chief among those was a metaphysical presupposition utilized to justify lockdowns - scientific determinism. This supposition explained why we freely closed schools and businesses, violated human rights, ended freedom, diminished religious faith, and destroyed the First World. Driven by hysteria, governments and the media compelled us to look at our entire society through the lens of materialistic scientific determinism to enable the worst peacetime public policy decision in democratic history. We must remove what we were forced to believe to justify lockdowns and COVID law to rescue our future.

A Brief on Scientism

Scientism is a relatively modern philosophy that had its moment in the sun in the 1930s but was disregarded as hundreds of millions died to its societal consequences. Popularized by Hayek, Bacon, and Popper, scientism as a faith is an expression of over-exuberance and over-confidence in the reductive and materialistic conclusions of the scientific method. Gregory Peterson describes scientism as “a totalizing opinion of science as if it were capable of describing all reality and knowledge, or as if it were the only true method to acquire knowledge about reality and the nature of things.” Scientism argues that believing anything that cannot be proven by “science” is irrational and a waste of time. Humanity should only “believe” what “the science says”.

Legend says that one of the forefathers of scientism once said,

To Napoleon on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God:

“Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.” - Pierre-Simon Laplace

The weakness of scientism is evident if you break down the actual philosophical process behind “science”. Simply put, science is a theory of knowledge and a view of how reality works. Science and the actual scientific method are not the same; they are linked but categorically different. To clarify the epistemological frameworks, the scientific process provides a way to analyze a subject but doesn’t provide specific answers. It results in numbers and data, not information and knowledge. Knowledge requires answers, and answers need agency. Processes don’t have agency, and numbers don’t have agency; humans have agency and can declare conclusions that correlate to reality. Data is drawn from the scientific process, but only an individual can balance competing assumptions, conflicting facts, and moral variances to provide actual answers we can apply in reality.

Scientism is an empty philosophy. It even fails its own tests. As an example,

1. Math and logic are presupposed in the scientific method and can’t be proved by the method itself

2. Confidence in an individual’s cognitive facilities and ability to reason is presupposed and paradoxically cannot be proven

3. Aesthetics cannot be established by the scientific process

4. Ethics and morality are outside the realm of scientific deduction

5. History is presupposed by science and cannot be proven by science

6. The scientific method itself cannot self-reference

The science we know today used to be called “natural sciences” or “hard sciences”. Science comes from the Latin word “knowledge” and “expertise”. Historically, science refered to a larger corpus of knowledge organized and studied beyond just natural sciences, like philosophy, religion, and economics. For example, the famous economist Adam Smith viewed himself as a scientist and philosopher because the term “economist” didn’t exist. Modern science today is unfairly biased and framed by materialism and reductionism. Science of the past had a wider compass and a more mature view of the world than science today.

During the height of scientific determinism’s popularity, communism and other destructive fascist ideologies rose in popularity. These political ideologies reduced humanity to deterministic and highly restrictive calculations, the logical end game and the consequence of science as the uber alles philosophy. The only thing that mattered was what could be weighed and measured, what could be controlled or be modeled. Eliminating humanity’s higher meaning, creativity, transcendence, and purpose is fundamental to modern scientific determinism’s success.

During our lifetime, the New Atheists unknowingly re-inserted scientism back into the public dialectic. They never specifically argued for scientism but instead focused on ridiculing reverence for traditional faith and religion based on “scientific rationalism”. The New Atheist movement popularized the suppositions of scientism in our culture today without using the phrase as a public deathwork for secularism and pragmatism.

Lockdowns are Scientism

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COVID-19 and the resulting Fauci Apocalypse turned our world upside down three years ago. Our world went from familiar to an unimaginable dystopian horror film. Every one of our lives changed in ways we never thought possible. Even as we leave the pain of the past three years, we are left with the echoes of failed policies and massive irresponsibility by our elected leaders. Nearly every major crisis we face today can be traced back to 2020, caused by insufficient data, a zealous expert class, an antagonistic media, and dreadful policy decision-making.

In light of our three-year “hysteria-adversary”, I wanted to revisit my article “Evidence over Hysteria — COVID-19” which changed policy, public debate, and my life. An article that originally was just a stream of research for only my friends turned into a viral sensation that generated millions of views in less than 24 hours until I was censored, canceled, and de-platformed for saying what ended up being true. Despite the efforts of elitist censors, my article was copied and shared widely. “Evidence over Hysteria: COVID-19” was the most-read story on ZeroHedge in all of 2020. I republished my original article on my substack and as far as I know, it is the only complete version on the internet. My experience also led me to start a new company focused on building a new type of infrastructure for the free and open web called Hydra Host.

Today, I’m rolling up my sleeves to revisit my analysis and reflect on the lessons learned. I hope it encourages you to never surrender to censorship and that courage requires you to be disliked.

A life living in fear is not a life worth living.

Canceled

Here is the background of how I got to this point. I started collecting data and analyzing COVID-19 in January 2020. I initially was only sending my gathered research to my close friends every week, and that email list started to grow organically. Then, I moved my research to a running doc as the data set became too large to share via email. Several readers encouraged me to publish the running doc for others to see so they can easily share it. I had a Medium account, so I posted it there for others to see.

To my surprise, my research and honest exploration of what was happening with COVID took off in good and bad ways. My article went worldwide, and I got praise from news outlets for challenging the hysterical, suffocating orthodoxy. My article reached the desk of politicians of both parties and was even read in the White House.

I also receive delirious hit pieces from CNN to NYT, death threats, friends publicly ridiculing me, hundreds of prank calls from strangers, and voicemails threatening my life and my family. Medium took down my post and Google removed it from my drive after pressure from angry EPIs and blue checks (when Twitter-verse said only autocratic epidemiologists could speak). After three years of being vindicated, my article is still censored and “under review” with Medium, breaking the world record for the most extended censor review. This is one of many reasons I started Hydra Host.

This led the WSJ Editorial Board to defend free speech, free inquiry, and our right for all of us to ask questions about COVID lockdowns. This was the beginning of the shift in public conversation. More and more scientists, utilizing open-door from the public debate around my article, began to speak up. Privately, scientists and journalists worldwide started to email me thanking me for my contribution and lamenting how they cannot speak up for fear of losing their livelihood.

At this moment, I realized how those bullies and wannabe tyrants in favor of censorship only have a veneer of support. It was a minority with a big scary media stick. They must keep up the front and force others to keep believing in their perceived power, but even those close to them will privately disagree. Their power was a shadow of fear. I just needed to wait it out, as the foundation of COVID hysteria was shaky. The evidence (aka reality) will lead people to see the error, so I kept going. I didn’t fear reprisal and helped change our country’s course out of lockdowns..

When those in power seek to first silence and slander rather than address your arguments, be confident that you are onto something. Courage is not something you need or experience when you are favored and worshiped; courage appears when you are at your darkest hour and persevere despite what the narrative says.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” — Nelson Mandela

So let’s dig in.

Since I was updating my article several times a day before it was taken down, I’m pulling from a locally saved version I have not edited since 2020. My original paper had hundreds of citations and over 60 pages of charts and graphs. I will roll up my article into a handful of summarized meta-claims. Each header below summarizes an original meta-claim from March 2020 with its associated accuracy based on what we know today. Then, there is a quote that epitomizes the narrative of 2020. Below the selection is a short explanation with direct links to evidence and further reading.

Meta-claim scoreboard:

COVID claims — 10 out of 11 were accurate

Solution claims — 5 out of 6 were accurate

Let’s start with the most central claim of my article: was COVID-19 a hysteria or not?

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