Bowling alleys, poker night, softball tournaments… when we look back at what our dads and our Granddads did back in the day, we see major groups of men gathering. The VFW halls would be full of men talking about their service days, their current work day, or the towns events. Playing cards at one of their friends homes meant that the ladies would gather, all the kids would play outside and the men would play cribbage. As they talked, our dads would give hard advice to their close friends and help with anything that needed fixing. When the opportunity arose to help fix a car in the driveway, they would be the first to bring tools and a helpful hand.

Even my time in the Marine Corps taught me that as we did work, it was always successful because of the team effort. Adding that the hard work we did added value to our lives, our career and even the Corps. The young men would learn from the older Marines and as they passed down this ‘esprit de corps’ experience and knowledge, but they also passed on the right mind set, the act of producing a team, they pass down a valuable lesson in wisdom. As you grow older, you have more failures, hard life moments, and if you are smart you take these failures and remember how these failures shaped your life. Passing this wisdom on is key to becoming a team player. A better man if you will.

Men work hard at their jobs and thus they want to play hard. Restoring a car or motorcycle, hunting, hiking, camping, playing team sports, wood working, all of these types of hobbies are made to take the man out of the daily grind at work and force him to take on challenges, fix a problem, work in a team, or just sit around a fire and cook a meal. Like was done a 150 years ago, men lived, worked and cooked more outside. Seems fitting that our instinct is to be outside doing things.

Men need to create more than we consume, we need to make, create, fix and restore. Men are starved for life long hobbies that contribute to true friends. What I mean by this, is that the man who is making, on a team, or restoring something will have questions, he will talk about his hobby, he will sometimes need help and he will see other men’s values. This is when men will find likeminded men to work on things together, forging the friendship, providing support and learning more about themselves as a man.

We’ve forgotten at our peril that doing things together — fixing a truck, pitching in on a project, sitting around a fire with honest talk — is how men teach one another to be better. It’s not nostalgia; it’s practical. When we choose to create more than we consume, to show up with tools and willingness, we build friendships that hold up in hard times and pass on the lessons that made us strong. If we want better men, communities and families, let’s get back to making, fixing and mentoring the next generation.