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Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles
of a gym are the ones who get in good shape.9 People who enjoy long work weeks and the politics of
the corporate ladder are the ones who move up it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of
the starving artist life are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.
This is not a call for willpower or “grit. ”This is not another admonition of “no pain, no gain.”
This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So,
friend, choose your struggles wisely.
A DESIRE, one of many
Michael Burns- Santa Cruz
“Most of my life I have carried a deep seated desire to be recognized, honored and proclaimed a
worthy, valuable, capable, admired man, like my Dad.”
I have been a member of EBCOM since 1996, and this is a place where a desire like that could
possibly be fulfilled. Here is a summary of my Hero’s journey.
I am a 74 yr old white male, “initiated into 20th century manhood” by Justin Sterling’s Men, Sex, and
Power weekend in 1986, Manhattan. I left the Sterling community in 1996 and moved from NY to
my birth home, the East Bay. I immediately sought an alternative men’s circle and found East Bay
Nation of Men.Thirteen years later, 2009, I moved to Santa Cruz, so, due to distance, I completed
with the Bushwhackers and joined the international organization Mentor, Discover, Inspire (MDI)
and a Santa Cruz team. I am an active member in both EBCOM and MDI.
My Hero training began after high school and I went away to college, no longer under my parents
roof. I could more freely explore and experiment with my life style, how I behaved, being distant
from an authority figure. This led me to a dim awareness of the fact that I didn’t know shit. I
earnestly began to quest for meaning, understanding, and truth.
It took different locations, jobs, risks, people, wives, and a long time to discover that my true
masculine self was hidden by a childhood self image of unworthiness, inadequacy, and just not good
enough. This shadow covering my true self was created by the contrast of Dad’s heroic qualities, and
even my older sister’s successes, of which I paled in comparison, in my eyes.
I had been in EBCOM for some years acting as if I was a leader, as I had done in the Sterling Men’s
Division, as I had done owning and operating my health food store in Long Island, The Mung Bean,
as I had done as a 4th grade teacher, as I had done as substitute teacher, as I’m doing now in MDI.
Exposure to the circle’s acknowledgment of Heroes brought up my long held desire to be
recognized, honored, and proclaimed a worthy, valuable, capable, admired man, like my Dad.
At one of our Wed. nite Fire Circles, I made a disclosure to my brothers that I wanted to be a Hero.
Don’t know why or how I did that, I guess because I trust the men and, as a man once told me, “You
are disarmingly honest”. (a side funny story about an elder I have upmost respect and regard for, JT.
After I made that naked and unashamed full disclosure, he jumped on offering to support and
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