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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Brant Hansen
Started reading
June 2, 2025
“The baby is safe. We all want a guy like that.”
“Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you,”
A passive man becomes useless to those around him. What’s more—and this may seem counterintuitive—a passive man is a threat to the woman in his life.
Since masculinity is about the taking of responsibility, it means squarely owning up to our own failures and the things we need to do.
A profitable business is never a choice, it is a series of choices. A fit body is never a choice, it is a series of choices. A strong relationship is never a choice, it is a series of choices.
You make choices. They matter. They are yours. Yes, some of your choices will be selfish, immature, and foolish. But own them. Learn from them. Continue to bring your attention back to God (we’ll talk about this later) and watch how he changes you over time to become the sort of person who more naturally chooses the right things, the wise things.
This growth starts with loyalty, with a commitment. “No matter what, I am going to do this.”
My sin isn’t sin because it’s on a random list of activities that God just doesn’t happen to like. My sin is sin because it stops me from being who I’m supposed to be and what I could have been. It’s a shortcut that leads away from the kingdom of God, where I can flourish, to a different kingdom—the kingdom of me.
Make no mistake, when we throw ourselves into nothingness, a sense of meaninglessness is not far behind. And reducing our lives to meaninglessness is the goal of our spiritual enemy. God loads meaning into the world, and the enemy wants to deconstruct it. That’s all he can do—tear down or offer a mockery of the real thing.
We need a bigger vision for our lives.
We have to want something more than we want the momentary dopamine hit. That bigger vision is everything. To give up something, we have to love something else more.
I want to look back and be satisfied that I did real things and didn’t waste my ambition on soul-killing stuff.
It’s God’s desire that you live truly unencumbered, truly free. Not “free” to enslave yourself, but free to be the you we all need you to be.
The people in your neighborhood, at your school, or at your workplace should be safer because you’re there. Even if they don’t know it.
If you don’t do something, don’t just assume it will get done. Your life is deeply meaningful, one way or another. Your efforts matter. Your work matters. You’re the only one uniquely placed in your position in the world. No one else is in your exact context.
There’s even a name for this: the bystander effect, when people stand aside and watch, even in an obvious emergency, thinking surely someone else will take care of the problem.
Oh yes—a man among boys.
You will struggle with feeling meaningless when you choose to invest your time and energy in meaningless things.
Bring your all to what you’re doing. It makes the time go faster. Even better, it’s an act of worship. It’s what you’re made to do.
Real love means wanting the best for someone.
A woman is not a product to be consumed. If you’re going to use the word “love,” if you tell a woman that you love her, remember this: At the very heart of love, real love, is security.
Weirdly, we all have “swords” in our mouths, in the sense that we can cut people mercilessly with the words we choose.
After all, what we believe is not what we say we believe, it’s what we actually do.
Who we become is a direct result of what we pay attention to.
Dallas Willard wrote. “What is in our ‘heart’ matters more than anything else for who we become and what becomes of us.”
Men who are honorable serve as foundations for their families and communities, but they may never be fully appreciated.
He values you and loves you so much, he wants to change you. He wants you to become the rare, remarkable man who’s life-giving to others.
Worrying about tomorrow just makes today miserable.
