Chad Howse Fitness – Guys like me, and many who are much better, write about ways in which we can bring back our manliness, our shared heritage, our warrior’s spirit, our outlaw’s spirit, in a very necessary attempt to steer the ship in a better direction.
Let us, then, look to cultures past and take from them what we can to aid us in our own quest to become conquerers and warriors and leaders of men who are equally as great as we are, or better.
8 Lessons in Manhood From the Vikings
1. Accept death with open arms.
If death isn’t feared but instead welcomed there’s no limit to what you can accomplish and what you’ll aim to accomplish. Viking explorers ventured into uncharted seas to discover what was not yet known. We not only fear death but we fear the unknown and injury and failure and for shite’s sake we need to stop, and the end will start when we bring our greatest fear into the present.
2. Physical toughness and mental toughness are one in the same.
The gym is now our Agoge, our training for physical toughness but also for mental toughness. Where men, both young and old, trained for war we now have to train as if we’re training for war. Of course, some men still actually do train for war and they’re tougher for it, but for those of us not following that path we still have to use our training to incur more than muscles or abs or pecs.
3. Do what can’t be done.
There was something about that culture, the Viking’s culture, that wanted more, that didn’t fear death and that allowed them to try what others wouldn’t. They expanded at an incredible rate for such a small culture. Had they not ventured east, Russia as we know it now, would be China. They did what wasn’t supposed to be done but as a culture they didn’t think of it like that.
4. Eat whatever the land provides you with.
The Vikings ate meat and fish and fruits and vegetables and different grains that weren’t processed. But they ate. They drank and consumed foods that were in season – of course, that was the only option – and tasty.
Eat meat. Eat lots of fatty fish. Eat veggies (lots of veggies). Eat fruits.
5. Your fate is sealed.
How you die is a story that’s already written, or so the Vikings believed. And why not believe this? We don’t have control over how we die, so why run from it? Why worry about it or fear it?
6. Hard climates make hard men.
The Vikings lived in a very harsh climate where it was hard to grow crops and build colonies and survive. You see it in our modern day as well, where the constant harshness that a climate provides produces men who are tougher and more resilient. That “climate” can be work.
7. Simplify.
It’s becoming harder to truly simplify and focus on one thing. There was a time when one thing was pretty much the only thing you could focus on. If you’re sailing, you were sailing, not tweeting or emailing or even reading. If you were farming you were farming, and if you were fighting, well, only a fool would think about something other than his enemy while entrenched in battle.
8. Follow Your Ambitions!
Ambition is the calling of your soul. It’s that inner voice telling you where your life should head. For a few great Vikings that meant expansion or becoming king or conquering neighboring tribes. For us, the possibilities are limitless, however, we’re in a weak world where ambition is labeled as a selfish act by people who simply don’t have it, when it’s ambition that has provided us with every medical and technological breakthrough that we now take for granted.
Read the full lessons at Chad Howse Fitness
