It Takes BALLS To Face The Issues Of Midlife & Beyond!
I'm Dr. Adam Sheck, and I'd like to welcome you to the "Men After Fifty" Community! Living for more than half a century on this planet is a rite of passage and I wanted to create a place where we can share our wisdom and experience to help each other and to help those who matter in our lives. As true for many "men after fifty", I've had a number of careers over my … [Read More...]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCPAQrDTf_M[/youtube]
I was the featured guest at a Google Hangout sponsored by the Good Men Project recently, the topic being, “Are Men Falling Behind In Mental Health?”
We opened up the discussion beyond mental health to the larger issue of men seeking help and what is in the way. As a Clinical Psychologist and Couples Counselor, my practice is filled mainly with men who actually do want to improve their lives. The panel consisted of five other men, including my colleague, Jed Diamond, PhD, who has been engaged in men’s work for decades and is becoming more involved in the pioneering work of Male Gender Medicine.
Watch the video, it’s thirty minutes that will definitely give you much to contemplate.
Please share it with friends, family and colleagues that will benefit and post your comments below.
Don’t Wait For The New Year, Start Now!Most of us wait until the “New Year” to reassess our lives and state new plans, intentions and “resolutions” for our lives. Yes, it’s a time when there is general consensus that this is a good thing to do, yet why wait?
If you want to create change in your life, why wait? NOW is the only time that you can make change, whether that NOW happens to occur today, tomorrow or on the first of January. The only thing that creates change is creating change: in the mind, the heart, the body. It starts with intention and completes with follow through. And it begins NOW!
The purpose of this post [Read more…]
What Makes A Man Sexy?There was a recent survey that announced the 21 “Sexiest Men Over 50“. To be honest, I’m appreciative that anyone is even taking of survey of MY demographic.
And the top three were hardly surprising: George Clooney, Antonio Banderas and Denzel Washington. I find it way cool that this is a multiethnic list.
What WAS surprising in a good way was that a NON-movie star, not conventionally sexy man, 56 year old musical prodigy, Yo-Yo Ma was number six on the list!
This gives me a tiny bit of renewed faith in the human race an perhaps a little more hope to the “average” man after fifty. When Yo-Yo Ma was asked what made a man sexy, he replied, [Read more…]
What Do You See?
I read a beautiful poem on aging recently, posted on the Internet as coming from an old man in Australia who died in a nursing home with nothing to his name but this poem in his pocket.
It’s a beautiful poem and VERY appropriate to the Men After Fifty blogsite. HOWEVER, it has also been attributed to a “crabby old man” in Florida as well as a “crabby woman” and a host of others. It is yet another urban legend.
Since I’d like to give credit where credit is due, I did a little Internet research and discovered that it was written quite some time ago by a disabled veteran named Dave Griffith who writes a LOT of poetry and titled, “Too Old Soon”. You can enjoy his work at his website.
Let me know what feelings and thoughts are inspired by the poem below:
What do you see my friends, what do you see? [Read more…]
Midlife Crisis: Marry Your Yoga Teacher?The idea of the midlife crisis is certainly something that we men face at some point in our lives, usually in our forties or fifties, making it a very important subject for the Men After Fifty blogsite.
As we enter and begin to face the second half of our lives, we men have the opportunity to face our mortality and this brings up existential issues. What have I accomplished in my life? What do I have YET to accomplish? What might I NEVER accomplish? What will I leave behind? What kind of person have I been and what kind of person do I WANT to be? Does my life have meaning?
Some men “act out” on the way to facing these questions and we have the stereotypes of men buying the red convertible, having affairs, getting involved with younger women, perhaps all of the above. And you can also marry your yoga teacher!
Now I’ve never met Alec Baldwin nor his lovely yoga teacher bride and [Read more…]
Believe it or not, more men in die each year of prostate cancer than women die of breast cancer! Why is that? There are many theories, but I would suggest in my psychological simplicity that it’s because men are men!
We are stoic, tolerate pain, avoid seeking help, avoiding asking for directions and avoid seeing doctors unless we believe we are dying! We ignore the warning signs of many physical illnesses. And while many women are rallying to create awareness of breast cancer and find the cure, as men, perhaps we’d rather pretend that nothing is wrong.
This creative and VERY ballsy video features the beautiful model Rhian and will definitely get the attention of men. WARNING: it is over the top, risqué and will be disturbing for some of you. AND, ignoring cancer is even more disturbing, so I’m willing to take the risk in sharing this.
Pay attention to your body and to your health, especially those in our Men After Fifty Community! We’ve got to look after each other! PLEASE share this information with someone you care about.
Thanks so much,
I can only answer this question, “what does it mean to be a man after fifty?” from my own experience and ask that YOU will all comment and share YOUR answers as well. I hope to create a dialogue which will help me expand this “Men After Fifty” Community and Website in directions that will serve men and their loved ones.
As of the time of writing this article, I’m in my early fifties and I’ve really been contemplating what that means to me. Although much of the time I still feel like I’m twenty-five, I also must admit that I’m “over the hump” and most likely have less time left on the planet than I’ve already lived.
To be honest, [Read more…]