063 – BEING SICK…Like A Man - a podcast by Alf Herigstad

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BEING SICK…Like A Man…
This isn’t a super fun topic today, but it happens to be one that is relevant to me at the moment…because I am sick.  I have some kind of chest congestion, upper respiratory infection. Like everybody, I hate being sick.  I hate being taken out of my regular routine and everything you do is more difficult and uncomfortable…it sucks, plain and simple.
But, there are a lot of things about life that suck that are also unavoidable; people getting sick from time to time is one of those things.  So I was thinking about the inevitability of being sick occasionally and I started remembering a lot of things I’ve heard all my life.What I’m talking about specifically is remembering people…mostly women, complaining about how the men in their lives act when they are sick. 
Some women complain that their man acts like a huge baby when he is sick…like he’s going to die or something.  Women seem to take an especially dim view of this behavior and I can’t say I really blame them, because of all the physical things they go through that are expected of them…like pregnancy, menstruation, and cramps in addition to all the regular sickness they get as humans and are still expected to keep the house clean, make dinner and take care of kids. It really is pretty unfair and its no wonder they roll their eyes when their big brave man acts like he’s on his death bed every time he gets a cold.
The other complaint I’ve heard is that a man will simply isolate himself when he is sick.  He doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone or anything and gets grumpy when people try to help him.  I confess that I have been guilty of this one.  Like I don’t want anyone to see me in my weakened state.Then you have the guys that just try to ignore the fact they are sick and believe if they just keep acting healthy then they will be healthy.  They wind up going into work when they shouldn’t, infecting other people with what they have, and not allowing their bodies to get well…so they keep getting more sick until they have a real problem.  I was also guilty of this in my younger days…I didn’t have time to be sick, and I almost killed myself one winter by continuing to go to work in the elements everyday for a month with a high fever.  It caught up with me eventually and luckily before I died from stupidity I wound up on my back for several weeks facing a much longer recovery that I would have had if I was smart.The point of all this is that it’s much easier to be a better man when you feel good, when everything is going your way.  It’s much more difficult when you face some kind of adversity…and illness is an adversity.  Lots of guys seem to think that when they are sick they have a free pass to either a.)  Revert back into a child.  b.) Become kind of a jerk and take it out on everyone else in the household, or c.)  Become an idiot and almost kill their self.
The purpose of this episode is to put you on notice that your free pass has been removed, it doesn’t exist anymore.  My hope is that the next time you get sick you will remember this episode and try even harder to be a better man.The next question is…how should we act when we are sick?  Well, in a perfect world I think a guy would acknowledge he was sick…then accurately assess what his limitations are…then he would consider the impact on everyone else in his household and figure out what he can do to minimize that impact.  In other words…stay focused on being a better man even though you feel like crap.  Don’t take advantage of peoples kindness and don’t take out your frustrations on them either. 
It’s really not rocket science…once you remove the free sick pass, it becomes pretty obvious that your job is to try to be the best sick guy you can…you owe it to the people around you, but you also owe it to yourself.I was wondering about why so many guys act like this…especially the guys who...

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