You can see it, in the eyes. It’s a sort of far-away look, not quite vacant but…distant. It’s like the mind behind the eyes has gone somewhere else, IS somewhere else while the body remains behind, moving as if by remote control or on autopilot.
The term is familiar to those who have served in the military, served in combat. The “1,000 yard stare” they call it. It is what you see in the eyes that have seen too much, been through too much, walked through too much fire already…and know that the day isn’t over yet, that’s there are still miles to go before they’re done.
I was at the gym the other day to do what I could to try and give ol’ Father Time a fist punch in his fat face, and I started to really look around at the other men there with me. The early morning crowd of the 50+’ers as I’ll call them. Maybe late 40s, usually older. Working the elliptical, the treadmill, the stair machine. Or pressed back in the fly machine, body resisting the idea of one more set. And I realized that I saw it there, too – a similar kind of thousand-yard stare.
Men who have been weighed down by the burdens of the responsibilities they carry. The failures they’ve endured. Feelings of doubt, insecurity, inadequacy gnawing at them somewhere on the inside. Watching the gray come in, the hairline receding, and the waistline advancing.
Getting themselves to the gym to do what they can to fight back the inexorable advance of the hands of time. Putting in one more set, push 15 more minutes on the treadmill. Burn some calories, keep the belly at bay, shore up the cardiovascular system a bit, keep that blood pressure down.
All the while there seems a certain disconnection to it all. It’s as if they are alone; surrounded by people, but alone with their thoughts. Feeling isolated. Probably discouraged. Maybe there’s trouble at work, trouble at home.
Or maybe…there’s no trouble at all.
No battle to fight. No foe to defeat. No mountain to climb or depth to explore. It’s just another Thursday. Head to the gym, get cleaned up, kiss the wife and kids goodbye, and gird yourself up for another day of meetings and spreadsheets and traffic.
More and more convinced that you are in it alone. That you are the only one who feels like this, that no one else would really understand what you are going through.
In the fast-paced world in which we find ourselves, we are all linked and connected and bound up by social media in the virtual world…but increasingly disconnected from each other in real life, here in meatspace. The meat-a-verse instead of the metaverse. Flesh and blood, skin and bones, real hearts with real emotions.
Emotions too often kept under lock and key. Pushed down deep where they don’t show. Where they won’t give you away.
As much as you love your wife or your girlfriend, you’re afraid to reveal very much of that deep down darkness because you fear it might be TOO much. Reveal too much and you risk losing that one thing that all men crave the most: respect. So, you keep it all hidden.
You don’t let your kids see it. They need their dad to be strong, right? You don’t let your co-workers, or your employees see it. They need you to be competent, decisive, and in-charge, right?
So many men in this position feel like there is no one for them to talk to, not really. There are so few places they can go to truly unburden, to truly let go. To be the hot snotty mess you really need to be sometimes. And so you hide it. You bury it. Medicate it. Numb it with alcohol. Sports. Porn. Food. Netflix. Video games.
To get just a few minutes of freedom from the collection of demons pounding on the door.
And so there you are, in the gym, still fighting the good fight to try and keep yourself healthy, to keep yourself alive just that much longer so you can be there for your wife, your kids, your job. The people that need you. But in those unguarded moments when you are alone in that room full of people, and your mind slips into dreams of what could be, could have been, or needs to be, or wasn’t, your eyes start to lose their focus. Your mind slowly shifts its gaze into that unknowable distance that manifests as a thousand-yard stare.
As your mind drifts, the strongest emotion that you are mostly likely feeling underneath it all is not anger, not sadness, or despair. More than anything else what you are feeling is just quite simply…
…alone.
I am here to tell you that YOU ARE NOT ALONE! You are NOT the only one! Men need other men, shield brothers to lock arms and man the walls together. And that guy on the treadmill to your left? The one hitting the leg press on the right? Odds are, they are feeling something very similar to the disconnected weight of life that you are. There are probably a lot of more of us out there that you think, all of us with our own private version of that 1,000 yard stare.
And if we could just find each other, help dig each other out, let each other know that there are others like us, we could band together, lock shields, have each other’s back and maybe, just maybe we’d begin to realize that we are NOT in this alone; that we DON’T have to stand the watch alone!
It is my heartfelt hope that what I write here can become a beacon of hope to those men who feel this way – cut off, adrift, disconnected and isolated. I want you to know that you are not alone. That we all feel it, man. That we ALL have been there, or are there now, or are going to be there at some point soon enough.
I want you to know that there IS a way out, a way through. There IS a way to get connected, to reclaim a vision, to reignite a desire and a passion for life that you may have thought was gone for good; but it isn’t. It doesn’t have to be.
On these pages in the coming days, weeks, and months, I want to share my heart about how to rekindle that fire, to reignite that passion, to straighten that spine and strengthen those knees. To move you from being lost behind that thousand-yard stare, to eyes that are aflame with a burning desire to be the good, and the strong, and the justice that you want to see — and want to be — in the world. To stand, and after you have done all, to stand!
And it all starts with allowing yourself to believe in this one simple yet powerful truth:
You are not alone.
