We should all have a “Code of Conduct” that we live by, a moral compass, a set of guiding beliefs…whatever you want to call it. Having a Code to live by helps you make the best possible decisions in your life, at times when there are simply no answers to be found.

This is my version and it’s called the “Old Boys Code”….

During my lifetime, born in the 60’s’, being a kid in the 70’s, a teenager in the 80’s and beyond, there has been a distinct change in the way young men are educated. When I say educated, in this sense I mean emotional education, how society ‘expects’ a young man to be.

But there is one critical element of how every man should or could live their life that is consistent to every generation in history, but that few seem to grasp. It is something spoken about by people from Aurelius’ to Ali, from Aristotle to Arnold, from Musashi to Lee, but that is never directly taught and is too often taken completely out of context, and that is living your life by a Code of Conduct or a Warrior Code.

We all know what the virtues of a Warrior are, we hear them every day, we see them in inspirational posters, they are espoused by coaches and teachers consistently………….but they get lost. Our society’s win at all cost attitude has becomes a reflection of who we are as a society and as individuals. If we don’t win we are a loser. Only warriors are happy. It’s pounded into us every day through television and social media. We all love a winner, but that has grown to become an expectation that if we don’t win we have lost.

But at the other end of the scale is one of the greatest injustices you can impart on a young man, and that is to teach them to accept mediocrity for excellence. The ‘every child is a winner’ attitude does nothing to teach young men to be warriors, and young girls to be resilient and self-driven. A warrior must know how to lose and keep moving forward, to lose without having the loss be a reflection of who he is as a man.

My version of the Warrior Code is a reflection of all of the great ways of life from history, filtered through my own life experiences, and I have set it in a format that reflects how a Man should live his life in modern society.

Old Boys Code

· Duty

· Honour

· Judgement

· Tenacity

· Courage

· Belief

· Altruism

· Enterprise

Over the next 8 weeks I will share my thoughts on each of these elements and how such simple and straight forward concepts need to be brought back to our society and the education of our young men and women.

So stay tuned…

Live a Life Worth Living

John Rosel

info@the4pillarsoflife.com.au

www.the4pillarsoflife.com.au

A Code to Live By