David and I have been talking about doing this for a little over week now, so here goes. From here on out, or until we get tired of doing it, Finding Manhood will consult the last 7 days of blogosphere activity and share the post or posts that we think best represent the ideals of manhood as we see it here on the blog.

For our inaugural best of the week post, I give you a few choice morsels from a great jewel of masculine wisdom from Aaron Conrad:

What You’re Hiding

This probably falls under “Too Much Information”, but I have got some ugly feet. I mean my dogs won’t be winning any “best of show” anytime soon. Part of it is that they are built like Fred Flintstones and the other part is the byproduct of running and half marathons…

…Truth is I hate this time of year. I’m jealous of all the people with really skinny feet that wear flip flops all day. I actually enjoyed the Crocs craze a few years ago because it hid my puppies but I still got to be part of the summer footwear scene…

…I think my Flintstone Casper White Feet with 3 Purple Toenails are just one thing I try to hide from others. It’s my attempt to be perfect and not show some imperfection. But I bet if we took a feet exit poll, most people I run into in the summer wouldn’t give a rip about my choice of footwear…

…This is just one area that I need to stop trying to hide… others are bigger and will be much harder to let go of that imagined control over. There is freedom in doing so. There is a realization that people either won’t care as much as you think they will about (insert insecurity here), or they will care MORE because you were open and willing to share it…

Read this post in it’s entirety.

Good stuff sir. Good stuff.

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And now for David’s contribution.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my favorite blogs is The Simple Dollar, a personal finance blog done very well by Trent Hamm. (It’s a popular blog, so forgive me if you already visit it.) Though Trent does deal with the nuts and bolts of budgeting/saving/investing/frugality, many of his posts focus on the psychology of changing behavior.

Since becoming a man is all about growing and changing–at least as I see it–I thought you might enjoy this post from Trent. Here are, as Michael eloquently phrased it, some “choice morsels” from the post.

Saying ‘I Will Do It In The Future’ Is an Excuse for Failure

There are countless things that we ought to be doing now, but instead of doing them, we simply say, “Our future self will do it.”

Guess what? Our future self is pretty unreliable, too. He/she doesn’t think that the task in hand sounds like much fun, either, and he/she is just as likely to put it off as you are.

If you’re in debt and want to fix it, start fixing it now.
If you’re overweight, start eating better and exercising now.
If you’re not saving for retirement, set up retirement savings now.
If you want to get household tasks done, do them now.

If you won’t make the change, your future self certainly won’t, either. By skipping out now, you’re telling your future self that not doing it is just fine.

Read the entire post here.