WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MAN ?

What does it mean to be a man today?

Can men express their masculinity without becoming cold or closed-hearted or wimpy and emasculated ?

What’s a conscious man ?

A man understands and respects the power of choice. He lives a life of his own creation.He locks on to his target like a guided missile. There’s no guarantee he’ll reach his target, and he knows this, but he doesn’t need guarantees. A man doesn’t require the approval of others. He is willing to follow his heart and stand firm on his own feet.

A man knows he must commit to something greater than satisfying the needs of a few people. When others observe that a man is committed to his values and morals, he gains their trust and respect, even when he cannot gain their support. The way for a man to lose the respect of others as well as his own self-respect  is to violate his own values.Whenever a man sacrifices his integrity, he loses his freedom… and himself as well. He then becomes an object of pity.

 A man’s self-trust is one of his greatest assets. When he second-guesses himself by worrying about failure, he defeats himself. An intelligent man considers the prospect of failure, but he doesn’t preoccupy himself with worry. He accepts that if a failure occurs, he can deal with it. A man grows more from failure than he does from his success. Success cannot test his resolve in the way that failure can.When a man plays it safe, his has loss the opportunities to be greater for not only himself but the people and community that believe in him.

A MAN CAN CHANGE A WORLD OF YOUNG MEN BY NOT HIS WORDS BUT BY HIS ACTIONS.

A man is a giver of love, not a just a receiver. A man is the first to say “I love you.” The universe does not respond to hesitation. It is a man's  job to share his love with the world.. A man accepts the consequences of being male, he makes no apologies for his nature. The male path is filled with obstacles. These obstacles help a man discover what’s truly important to him. Through repeated obstacles a man learns to search for worthy goals and to eliminate goals that are unworthy.

A man actively seeks out the company of people who inspire and challenge him, and he removes those who hold him back. A man doesn’t blame others for his problems. .A man holds himself accountable for the relationships he allows into his life. He holds others accountable for their behavior, but he holds himself accountable for his decision to tolerate such behavior.A man teaches others how to treat him by the relationships he’s willing to allow into his life.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.

.....WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MAN .....

FATHER, BROTHER, UNCLE, HUSBAND, BOYFRIEND, SON

MAN

When is enough, enough ?

When can a man stop and say enough is enough, when he finally gets out of his own way and feelings to see the truth no matter how painful it truly is.

How can a man release his harbored anger, aggression and defeat in the presence of love ?

When can we put to bed our toxic pasts, that did nothing but lead us down dead end streets and at times almost take our lives ?

ARE WE OUR OWN ENEMY ?

We endure hardships, pain and suffer unneeded for our loves.
we stay stuck in places we don't like, all in the name of loyalty.
we don't move forward for fear of being something other then what we are at this moment.

I for one Have opened my eyes, I am saying enough is enough it's my time.
With my hard work in hand i will now eat from the fruits, that my sweat and time have made grow instead of enjoying the view from afar.

I will no longer stand in the way of myself covered in armor of doubt uncertainty and fear i will step out and face my success head on as a warrior.

I will love with open arms and not a guarded heart.

I will no longer willingly poison my body with foods , drinks , smokes that i know are slowly killing me and robbing me of the time i have set aside for my future.
I will no longer sit idly as my body proportions grow due to my inactivity.

I will no longer let opportunities fall thru my hands like sand in a blowing wind, lost to never be found.

I must make my self the best man that i can be in every way, no matter the cost because if your not a good man in heart, body , mind and soul you cant be the best friend, father, brother, husband, teacher or leader.
all these things are necessary tools to fend off the negative forces in the world that looks to cut you at the knees and watch you and everything you hold dear crumble.

I will protect my family like a shield, warm them as the sun , give forth knowledge as a teacher, love them like a father and be their for them as thier very own breath.

I will welcome my son in to this world as a king cause that's what he deserves, may he step on my stones of dedication to something more then i could ever even dream for myself.

Today i stop being my own enemy for you my Son.

Communication Is Key .....

Comunication is 60% body language 30% Tone and 10% words.

Body language is the biggest form non-verbal communication, which is made up of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. We send and interpret all of those without being aware of them. Body language may provide clues about the feelings and attitude of the person we are talking to, it may show aggression towards us, boredom in the conversation, or genuine interest. It can also lose you some money in poker if your not careful. So if body lanuge is so imporant why do we even talk at times ?

Now on to Tone, "Watch your tone with me!” Have you ever been told that as a child or teenager? Our tone has various feelings: anger, frustration, joy, happiness, we may sound distracted or preoccupied, be sarcastic, and all of those will influence how others hear what we are saying and how they will interpret our underlying message. So with out a thought we can change someones reseptive nature just by how we speak .....

I dont entierly belive that 60 / 30 / 10 throry, granted it does have truth to it in a big way but spoken words affect us on a deeper level than any of us can imagine and can affect us for many years, if not for a lifetime.
Think back to our childhood, what words did you hear about yourself or were said to you: beautiful, handsome, smart, clever, champ, winner or ugly, bad, stupid, dummy, good for nothing, loser, these words still linger in the mind many years even lifetimes after they were uttered.
How did they affect your current life?
Did you believe that you can do anything, and you couldn't lose taking risks to achieve more in life, or did you stay back, not wanting to contiune being a loser believing that you will not succeed anyway, so why even try? If you answered ‘‘yes’’ to any of these examples, you understand that oftentimes the people who used those negative words towards us were themselves so insecure in themselves that they used that form of communication to keep us feeling down, for their fears that we may rise higher than them. It is time to reconsider why those beliefs still have strongholds on your life; maybe you believed them then, but you do not have to believe them anymore, so let go of them.
I was called stupid, dumb ass, and what ever other names daily as a child and I in no way feel remotly close to any of these terribe words but it took time for me to really look at myself and find my wealth, my value and to define my self with my own words. See words create pictures in our mind, and those pictures create outward actions.So instead of concentrating on my problems, I like to focus on solutions in my life. Words are powerful tools that can help change our mind and our lives.
They create visions, which can be positive, Use your words to build up yourself and others, for never before and never again will there be another one of you.
Some of the most powerful words I ever spoke were those following “I” or “I am”, If you hear someone say to you “You are stupid” you have the power to either accept it or reject it, now if you hear yourself saying “I am so stupid” you will not have the power to reject it, since it came out of your own mouth. Each word out of your own mouth should be positive, good, and encouraging, to enrich your life, and those of others around you. I see this more and more everyday now with my son on the way, my eyes are open to the fact that words are so much more then sharp ideas, funny jokes or passonatie secrets they are the stones that can elevate a man to greatness or wheight upon his back to his demise..



WORDS CAN BUILD OR DESTROY IT'S OUR CHOICE HOW TO USE THEM..

Circumcision ? Clip or no Clip

OK, as most of you know I am a father to be to a baby boy, and because of this many questions are popping up but this one question has come up a bit more frequently.
( Will you have your son circumcised ? )


First and foremost, what is the foreskin?

No, it is not a useless piece of unnecessary flesh, there to be hacked off like some offending tag on a new garment.
It is a highly erogenous, erotically sensitive, male reproductive organ.
Yes, organ. Like the clitoris and labial regions of a female the foreskin exists to aid in pleasurable reproduction.
It houses 80-90% of the erotic nerve endings in the penis.
It contains on the inner side, sebaceous glans that produce lubrication during sex and the sheath like nature of the foreskin allows for frictionless, pleasurable sex during full penetration.

As a result of the removal of these vital sebaceous glans, most circumcised males require non natural lubrication during sex and masturbation, and are unable to take part in normal natural human intercourse.
Along side these sebaceous glans are a network of estrogenic sensing structures that aid in arousal and sexual reproduction.
Very little is known about these structures as so many men have had them removed, although scientists are fairly certain that the foreskin is the only place in the body that these particular type of estrogenic sensors exist. There is a great deal of speculation in the medical community that the removal of the foreskin and these sensors could account for some cases of male erectile dysfunction.
Next to the sebaceous glands and the estrogenic sensors are a network of lymph nodes. Like any component of the lymphatic system ,when these lymph nodes are removed during circumcision it permanently disrupts the body’s natural lymphatic system. Doctors attribute heightened susceptibility to infection to the removal of these nodes. As well as affecting the immune system the removal of any part of the lymphatic system can affect the body’s natural circulation system as well.

Delicate structures line the inside of the foreskin and attach it to the penis. With time, sometimes as late as 18 years in age, these structures release and full extension of the penis is possible. Removal of the foreskin tears these fine structures and exposes skin meant to be kept moist, to the air, causing the head of the penis to dry out and loose much of it’s sensitivity sometimes up to 80%


What happens during a circumcision?

First your son is restrained using a device called a circumboard. It looks like a board with four limb restraints in the shape of a baby.
It cradles and restrains your child so that they cannot move.
While your child screams, and they will scream, the doctor will wrap your child in a sheet with a hole, through which he will pull you sons tiny genitals.
He will coat them in an iodine solution to prevent infection. He will them take two clamps and insert them into the sides of your sons foreskin then, taking a third clamp he will “probe” or in actuality, rip, the membrane connecting the foreskin to the penis. When this is complete he will clamp lengthwise down the shaft to the foreskin and using scissors he will make a long gash in the side of the foreskin.
At this time 20% of doctors will administer a topical anaesthetic, the World Health Organization and others believe this is not adequate pain relief for such a painful invasive surgery and insist if the procedure is preformed that an injection of a local anaesthetic is necessary . Then taking a special instrument he will cover the head of the penis and using a cutting/clamping device that looks much akin to a cigar cutter he will pinch off sometimes up to two to three inches of skin, then using a scalpel or sometimes brute force he will sever the remaining foreskin which will then fall away. Many parents who have observed their son’s circumcision have commented that thought their children screamed for the first few minutes they often times quieted down during the cutting and clamping procedure, with some parents reporting the eyes of their sons rolling back in their heads. This is not because they are no longer in pain. It is because you just cut off half their penis and they are going into shock.

Can a circumcision go wrong? It is reported that every year aprox. 250 boys will die from complications due to circumcision, in North America alone. That doesn’t count the number of botched circumcisions that take place every year that boy’s live through. Everything from penile extension problems in adulthood from the shortening of the penis’s outer skin, severe and painful curvature of the penis to more serious injuries such as the severing of the urinary tract and the infection of staphylococcus bacteria in the surgical site which can cause life long damage to the genital region.


So with all that said the biggest argument I have to circumcise my son is
" Woman might not like it or make fun of him "

I think it's highly judgemental and ignorant of some people (aka women to say uncircumcised is unnatural) for these women to think they have to right to judge natures work. Wake up it's natural and not exactly the guy's fault that he's was born this way, they should be ashamed of themselves.
That's the same as a man laughing at you because you don't have big perfect breast implants, that can be easily fix with cosmetic surgery or for men to sit and ridicule the size or shape of you vaginal lips aka labia, that is meant to be there to protect your vagina.

To be truly honest, I find comfort in the fact that whatever decision me and his mother choose will be correct and if for that reason it happens to turn away or disgusts a woman, maybe that's not the type of woman I would want for my son.

His Fathers Son.......

A father is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring.

Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!
~Lydia M. Child



So as time passes and I come ever that much closer to becoming a father, I am starting to think more about my own father and our father son relationship.

you ever noticed how boys want to be just like their dad's when they are young, nothing like their father's when they are teens, and then become just like their father's for better and worse when they become adults?

This could not be more evident than in the relationship between my father and I. From my evolution of childhood through adult, the predictable life stages that occurred in my life that kept us apart and the challenges that keep us close vary as my view of him over the years, I have viewed and related to my father in many different ways in different stages in my life.

See as children, sons idolize their dads and think they can do anything. This is most often demonstrated by a son’s imitation of his father’s behavior by walking like him, talking like him or wearing his clothes or shoes. At this age, a son wants so much to please his father and receive his approval and acceptance. As for me I idolized my father from afar, my parents divorced when I was very young ( too young for me to remember ) So I would create pictures and depictions of my father from bits of stories that fell from dinner table conversations that I was too young to hear mixed with vivid glimpses of old photos and tales of his manhood,courage and psychical strength. My father was a god to me as a child and I would anxiously await his arrival when he would bless me with his seldom found presents. weather if it was because of his personal life, his jail sentence or his drug addiction my fathers touch or voice was rarely seen, heard or felt in my early childhood.


As a teen, I experienced a period of discord in which conflict was the central theme of my life. I often rejected the expectations, values and directions that my father had embraced and I took on more non-traditional philosophies, placing me regularly at odds with him. He had seen the error in his ways, in not only his life but in my life and was attempting to be the father that I needed and deserved but at this time in my life I didn't want a father.
Resentment or even the fear of depending on the man who was my absent "fallen god like" father was great, but he buried his head and continued to try and better
himself as a man and a father. He educated him self, he separated himself from his former life,he found respect for himself as a man. and even as a rebellious, resentful and emotionally scared teen that I was at the time, I couldn't help but take note of his growth. My father was becoming the dad I wanted, right before my eyes (yes it took years but he never quit ) He continued to build that father son relationship that we were so very much lacking.

As a young adult, My father took me in to his home, when mom couldn't handle me anymore and in this short year that I lived with my father from the age of 16 to 17
( the most time we spent together in my life ) He taught me many things about being and becoming a man strength, honesty , Faith, humility and The most important thing that my dad showed me was that only a real man can be a father.

See all men fall and make mistakes but only a man can rise, My father fell but he rose from the ashes of his mistakes and atoned for every sin and lie he told for every second lost of my childhood, he took responsibility for his actions and withstood the pain of facing his past shortcomings as a man face to face till only then, to move forward as a father.

and now I am to be a father to a son.

To successfully pass through these stages of idolizing, discord, evolving, acceptance and becoming a legacy, is an “ideal” goal for every Son to a father.

Let me become your legacy Dad, for my son and I will pick up what you have begun
and hold it high for the world to see, This legacy was not made of riches and soft times but forged from the bottoms of uncertainty, mistrust and scrutiny of naysayers to rise to the highest points of trust,respect, love and prosperity.

Thank You
Rev. Dr. Bruce C Rivera PH.D. aka my DAD

From a Son to a Boy to a Man to a Father.

A son : is a male offspring; a boy or man in relation to his parents.


My heart seems to beat a little faster these days
Maybe it's the thought of my life changing in so many ways

I've heard so many tales of sleepless nights
And tests of patience taken to new heights

Yet my excitement grows as we count down each week
For I know soon we will finally meet

I have a little fear I must admit
Will I be good at it?

I daydream of baseball games and fishing trips
And passing along life's little tips

Will you be tall? What color is your hair?
Do you like peas? What will you wear?

Can I slay the monster under your bed?
Will we be able to build a sled?

How will I explain the birds and the bees?
Oh, I must have a million of these

Answers to questions, questions to ponder
Things to see, places to wonder

Together, we'll be the ultimate team
Limited only by what we can dream

So as the weeks are counted down, I anxiously await
That Oh - so - wonderful date

When all of the waiting is over and done
And I can hold you in my arms, My Son.


So I'm gonna have a son...... still trying to wrap my head around the thought.
Being a father is a monumentus event in any mans life no matter the sex of the child, but to be blessed with the opportunity to raise a man in a time when there is a severe shortage of real men.
Especially Latino men, the fact is that too many Latinos are becoming bastardized hollow vessels of what a man is and should be.

Compassion, masculinity, courage, integrity, honesty, selflessness and sensitivity is the recipe.
The make up of a real man is not gauged by the amount of woman he can bed nor the amount of money or wealth he can obtain its not the car he drives or even the size of his genitals, none of this makes or shows a mans worth.


To be un hombre ( A True Man ), is the best compliment a man can receive. Un hombre verdadero is a true hero to his family and to his community, One who overcomes adversity and always trys to do the right thing not for a moment but for a life time, A pillar of hope that other men and boys can follow, An image that woman and young girls can view and see that self esteem, education ,self worth and self respect should be praised and not neglected based on the dimensions of there sexual extremities.

A real man is not threatened by cooking, cleaning, helping with the dishes or even being a father, he doesn't run when faced with fear and adversity. A man meets it head on as to eliminate, destroy and over come for the those who choose to follow
in his steps. A man is a leader and that's what young boys should be taught !!!