The Red Pill and Personal Responsibility: "Handle Your Business!"

One big difference between my Blue Pill and Red Pill years is the issue of responsibility.

You see, under the influence of the Blue Pill, I felt that in order to be a full and equal partner in my marriage I had to consult with and defer to Mrs. Ironwood at every step.  At the time I felt I was being a good and faithful husband, seeking consensus before action.

But consensus is the absence of leadership.  Women don't swoon and get damp panties because of how conciliatory a man is -- they do so because he leads.  Mrs. Ironwood and I faced plenty of problems which required firm, decisive leadership.  It wasn't even the decision that mattered in most of the cases, often it was the lack of decisive action on our part that exacerbated the problem.  I didn't want to be seen as overbearing and domineering, and she didn't want to be seen as pushy and bossy, so we both declined to make decisions until the decisions were made for us.  And then we blamed each other or ourselves, not because the wrong decision got made but because it got made by default, not by our conscious decision.  And some of these were just . . . stupid.

Post Red Pill, a lot of that has changed.  I don't hesitate to make a decision now.  It may very well be wrong, but it will be made.  If there's an asteroid headed for the ship the time for a committee meeting is over.  And since only the Captain can make that call, I've had to make that call over and over again.  I've been wrong a lot.  I've immediately owned up to it when I was, and did not try to deflect blame.  I've been wrong plenty.  But I haven't been uncertain.

The Blue Pill encourages you to dodge personal responsibility by diffusing blame with the group.  If it's just the two of you, then if something goes wrong you can always say "but that's what we decided, so it's at least partially your fault".  It is as if being wrong about something was somehow sinful.  Feminists have often lambasted men for being unwilling to admit their mistakes, and they had a point (back in the 1960s, when Archie Bunker ruled the Earth).  Stubborn insistence on being right even in the face of the evidence is folly.  Nor is it manly.  Admitting your mistakes and learning from them is the height of masculinity.

But regardless of the quality of the decisions, the Red Pill pretty much forces you to stare reality in the face and accept your part in it.  Is your wife fat?  Is perhaps your love of cheap pizza a contributing factor?  Then suck it up and quit ordering cheap pizza.  Are your children disrespectful?  Quit trying to share the blame with your wife, step up and discipline them appropriately.  Is your financial world a mess?  Then take a cold, hard, realistic look at your expenses and income and figure out if you need a second job or just sell a kidney.  But quit blaming the economy, your job, your boss, your crappy car or your sub-par education.  Take control of your finances and put your house in order, accepting that it was you who screwed it up in the first place.

The equality trap the Blue Pill lures you in not only deprives you of the power in your relationship, it allows you to dodge your own responsibilities by sharing blame with your wife.  You can always use her as an excuse for why your life sucks -- we have Hamsters too.  But to come to grips with your own shortcomings and then seek to repair them, that takes an act of personal responsibility entirely foreign to the feminist ideology.

It seems like an awful long stretch from adding some simple Game to your marriage to improve your nookie to the far more philosophical reaches of the Manosphere.  But in men the two are surprisingly linked.  When you start ignoring a lifetime of feminist-inspired bullshit about "what women want" and start supplying them with what they need, instead, then a lot of the residual crap that keeps you from living up to your personal responsibilities falls away, too.  Becoming personally more dominant, focusing on reducing the stress-points in your family's life (so you can concentrate on seducing your wife), and proactively managing your life to avoid unnecessary crises are all powerful Red Pill-oriented benefits from chucking feminism.  And ultimately, as your personal sense of the masculine becomes more strongly informed by your own actions and not by your inspiration, you start walking the walk in all areas of your life.
 
If the Red Pill had a catchphrase, it would be "Handle Your Business!".  And it doesn't really matter what your business is: getting a variety of pussy, focusing on one special mate, or going your own way regardless of your relationship status, the point is to HANDLE it.  You might mangle it or bungle it or really screw it up, but you won't be neglecting it.  And while you might be saddened at the loss of the hours of joy you once got from bitching, whining, moaning and complaining about how your life was crappy, all the extra free time you can devote to whatever gentlemanly pursuits you desire.  Say, pursuing more pussy.

Need a hand to get started?  Here's your homework: in your Little Black Book write down a list of all of the major problems on the horizon for you (and/or your relationship): financial, scheduling, whatever, just put down a list of every goddam stressful thing in your life that needs attention.  Make it a long list.  Put down "call your mother on her birthday" and "change oil" because any mortal man without grease in his veins who says he's changed the oil every 3,000 miles is a liar.  Put it all down, every single last dirty little job you know you should do, every bill you should pay, every chore and project that looms over you.  And once it's all down, start making plans and taking steps.

Most crap can be divided into "Do it once" and "Regular Maintenance", so start there.  You live in a magical fucking age, so open up a Google Calendar page and start scheduling your Maintenance duties periodically, three months out.  The "Do it once" pile might be long at first, but it shortens up pretty quick when you start focusing on it.  And while the "Regular Maintenance" side looks daunting, once you make those issues part of your routine they stop being issues.

Now spend a month ignoring your wife and just . . . handle your business.  Fix stuff.  Hang pictures.  Mow the lawn.  Clean the gutters.  Work out more.  Actually do that work you brought home from the office instead of letting it sit there in your notebook.  Pay the car insurance early.  Make sure the bills are up to date.  For gods' sake, TILE SOMETHING.  Mrs. Ironwood hated the color of our hallway for years, and under the Blue Pill I patiently waited for her to select a color.  I was happy to paint it, but I didn't want to paint it a color she hadn't selected.  That would be . . . overbearing.  So I waited, and waited.  Five years passed.  Kids turned the hallway into a fingerprint palace.  The topic was raised repeatedly, and always ended with "I'll take a look at some swatches next time I'm at Home Depot".  Mrs. Ironwood is rarely in Home Depot.

A few months after the Red Pill . . . I waited until she was at a conference for a weekend.  Then I painted that bitch of a hallway a bright Big Bird yellow.  She hates yellow.  Especially this one.  It's a visual assault, a yellow surpassing bright cheery children's drawings of the sun.  She complained bitterly.  Every time she walks down that hall, it's a symbol of how I pigheadedly rushed forward (after waiting patiently five years) and did something without consulting her (after five years of discussions) and without getting her consent.  I just . . . painted it.

She gave me shit about it for two weeks or so, until I finally stopped her and told her I'd be happy to repaint it  . . . providing she decided upon and purchased the paint.  Two years later, it's still Happy Sunshine Hallway.

The point is, I saw a problem and took responsibility for handling it without the advice or consent of my wife. Or anyone else.  Sometimes you just have to be the damn Captain.

But don't talk about it.  Don't brag about how put-together you are, how organized you are.  Don't go looking for affirmation and encouragement from your wife or friends or co-workers.  This isn't about them.  This is about you.  This is about your ability to handle your own shit on your own.

If the Red Pill never gets you laid and this is all you gain from it, then it would be worthwhile on its own.