You are not allowed to stop working out: You could be and should be working out much harder and in a more innovative manner than ever before. I have more than 20-years of lifting under my belt, but what I'm learning by partnering with my son and seeing all the crazy shit on youtube is insane. We have not missed a single workout (he's a beast), which is cool in and of itself; but we have not repeated a single workout either. Parkour + MMA exists? Fuck yah it does. I haven't looked forward to working out this much in a long-ass time. Blue sky, sun, no clouds, light breeze, coconut palms, and 85-degrees certainly helps.

You are not allowed to stop tracking your food, fattie: Have you been getting fat? If so, learn from it. There are really only two kinds of people, those who exercise self-discipline and those who don't. If you've been getting fat it's largely because your "schedule" - the majority of which is likely imposed upon you by others - is itself contributing to your ability to remain - or try to become - fit. Maybe you even suffer from full-on external locus-of-control syndrome, which is itself a bitch. Learn from it. Your job provided a schedule? Make your own. Your boss compelled you to rely on the company calendar for meetings? Use your own. Learn to be your own man - if nothing else - guiding your own decisions. Start with a simple nightly plan for the day after. But don't fucking get fat, fatty. You know that fat is like a magnet for this shit, right? And fat looks awful to your wife? And fat is disgusting? And it's utterly useless though uses energy so is actually running net-negative in terms of usefulness? Leave the fucking fat for that fucking 600-lb surgeon who's making a boatload of money 'cuz so many fat fucks are now morbidly obese fat fucks.

You are not allowed to stop showering: I once read that gamers don't shower. I recently read that professional gaming is pandemic-proof. So if you’re a professional gamer, then to hell with showering. For the other 32,345 of you, however, take a fucking shower. Christ. My children wanted - wanted - to take showers by the time they were about seven. If steele needs to remind you to shower then you're just a god-awful creature who should be living in a cave and if you ever want your wife to shave her sasquatch vagina again you better fucking remember that. Steele is way too kind to fat fuckers who don't shower.

You are not allowed to stop dressing appropriately, you lazy fucker: Sadly, I've been reading the last many years' worth of style guides and am convinced that no one here knows how to dress appropriately anyway. Unless they live in NYC, San Francisco, LA, Miami, definitely Miami Beach, Paris, Barcelona, Sicily, particularly Ibiza, maybe Houston, definitely not Monaco, South Korea if you're a lesbian and into cartoons, and 50/50 Buenos Aires. 'Merica is largely fucked except for those within 30 minutes of a coastline, in about six states.

You are not allowed to stop brushing your teeth: Jesus steele, ye of little faith, that's just disgusting. Any dude here reading this who needs to be reminded to brush his teeth is not now, nor ever will likely be a man or even a functioning human being. I get it, depression and all, but shit. Enough. I dealt with hardcore anhedonia and worked my way through it. Besides, fucking Joe Tiger King ruled over dumb-asses, monkeys, and lions, along with toothless, showerless, smelly assholes, so clearly, if you're not brushing your teeth, you're either a gay douchebag or a monkey.

You are not allowed to stop trimming your fingernails and toenails, and your nose hairs: [Oh, steele, the masses cried, clippers are not essential items. Whhhaaaaa.] For fuck sake, just bite your nails off like I do - after washing your hands for 20 seconds while singing happy-birthday twice - then follow-up with a pristine shiner nail buffer. What the fuck else are these teeth for? Regarding the nose hairs, be sure to double-check your ears, between the eyebrows (fucking mongoloid), back, and - puke - ass-crack. Conversely, if you have light, blonde hair and play tennis you can skip these strategic maneuvers.

You are not allowed to stop shaving your balls: Fuck shaving your balls you bunch of metrosexuals. I mean sure, if your balls are covered in moss then go for the trim, but shave? Jesus. The Surgeon General today said - while bemoaning having been born a gay, black man - "wash your hands more often than you ever dreamed possible… and speaking of testicles… stay at home if possible… we need you to do this for your mother… we need you to do this for your abuela… do it for your granddaddy, like I do… do it for your big mamma… do it for your pop-pop." He's talking about your balls, dick, those veritable underwater volcanoes of covid activity, key to flattening the curve and saving humanity, so get your act together. These are challenging times. And stay away from your granddaddy.

You are not allowed to stop being the oak: Part two, so poignant during this time of strife, this time of fear, this time of panic, this time of no fucking postings on MRP… well, I will thrust it upon your wife's ample bosom, and upon your own waiting eyes, wanting hands, and less-than-muscular bodies, this weekend. H-O-M-O-S.

You are not allowed to lose all of the discipline you've gained: Presuming of course that you've gained discipline. Some of you have, most of you haven't. Why? Well, most likely because you're lazy. We all know reddit skews 'merican, we all know 'merica skews fat, we all know 'merica also skews lazy and entitled. "Why should I be disciplined," you wonder. "Why should I be fit," you ask. "Why can't I have my cake and eat it too," you shout to the gods. But most of all, "why (1) won't my wife let me fuck her ass, or (2) lick my balls, or (3) fondle my anus, or (4) rub her hands lovingly along my ripped physique, pausing slowly along each of the three heads of my deltoid, running idealistically along my intercostals, pausing briefly at my obliques, and then stopping - and gazing - in wonder - at the "fuck wings" - is that what you call them perseus (?) - did I get that right (?) - shit I still don't have those things. (Fuck I lost track of my closing quotes need some help.) Well, you know those vertical muscles that point to your cock - sheeeit - so my point is that you're a homo and you're fat and you don't shower or shave and all sorts of other crap, that's why. Oh, and you probably still don't have discipline you faggot because you're here under false pretenses. Douche, you're here not for you, you're here for your fucking wife. Let me spell that out: f-o-r---y-o-u-r---f-u-c-k-i-n-g---w-i-f-e (wtf formatting). Dumbass, you're not fooling anyone, so until you develop some discipline for you - just for you - rather than for your wife's vagina - then you haven't even developed discipline - instead you've just developed quasi-you-vagina-discipline-syndrome. Hydroxychloroquine will not cure you of this. Only authenticity will, and you know nothing about authenticity anyway until you de-fag yourself. Besides, it only takes 40-days to develop a habit that sticks. 40 days. That's just .00137 of your entire life, lazy-ass.

You are not allowed to not have a damn plan for the pandemic, even now: I had a plan for this in fucking December. So did MCT. I prepared all of my employees in January - largely because the world was descending upon us for the goddamn super bowl. My fucking son has a plan. My daughter has a plan. My wife, oh what a surprise, does not have plan. I am her plan. Yet you don't have a plan? For fuck sake. If you're gonna "bathe in the blood of jesus" and that's your plan - yup, real, live quote on the news here - or you're just not into planning much - then you're about one hundred million steps behind the dumbest of the dumb. If you're really this dumb, like a character in a Doctor Seuss book, then perhaps you're just fucked and, well, the apocalypse is coming, it's a dog-eat-dog world, and in that world, some dogs are simply dinner.

You are not allowed to stop preparing for the future: Preparing equals plan. I wrote three paragraphs and deleted them because it really is that simple. Well, now, in thinking it through, there is another important message. Many of you are fucked. Many of you likely cannot get over how fucked you are. Many of you have lost your jobs. Many are losing your businesses. Many will be losing marriages. Many will suffer hardships not seen since the Great Depression. So what's a good man to do? I've thought about this often, and it segues into the next bullet point below: how can you really be an oak, really be stoic, and really weather any storm, with a laissez-faire that Adam Smith would admire… without staring death in the eye, without looking at the end, without expecting it, and without becoming at peace with it. My answer, sadly, is that I don't know. I really wish I did. I could offer up so, so much to the thirty-thousand dudes here, but the reality is that mine has been such a fucked-up, crazy, unique set of circumstances, that it's just not really practical. Know this: I'm in my 40's now. My health only went to hell in my 30's. I had plenty of years before when I failed, and succumbed, and blew it up, and deteriorated, and fucked myself, and fucked others, and generally fucked-up everything. The earliest ones seemed to be the hardest. So much invested: My ego. My identity. My sense of self-worth. Exactly like this: (too many colons) walking along a desert and encountering a hill: (see, I told you, that's three) strength gone, passion gone, confidence gone. Yet I stumble up and across that hill. And I keep going. Only to find a bigger hill: Thirsty now, starving too, perspiring, and fearful. Yet I climb and cross that next hill. Only to find that the hills keep coming. A simple parable, sure, but really it's the easiest way to communicate what it has taken for me to reach this point. Long before death forced me to embrace stoicism, I was already doing the work. I was trying and failing. I was experiencing life. I was picking myself back up and trying again. And as each year passed, I recognized that this, too, shall pass and it rarely is as bad as we think, and even when it is actually as bad as we think, well you know what, it's still not so bad, it's just life.

You are not allowed to let the things you can't control you: Look back in my post history if you like, you'll find my come-to-jesus realization that I can only control so much. That I can, and will - because I choose to - excel with those things that I can control. But at the same time, perhaps paradoxically, I, a control freak, will extinguish control over those things I cannot. Focus on differentiating between the two. I spoke to a client today. He's worth 8 figures. He's bemoaning the problems in our particularly-hard-hit industry, and while his wife is a legitimate cunt, he had driven to his house in the keys, sat on his pier, and gazed at the sunset - while finally recognizing that this - this - he cannot control. Why, I asked? Because, he said, for those things I control I think and plan and stress and stay up and own. But today, he added, for this thing I cannot control, I will be at peace. That dude is older and in his 50's, but his is a valuable lesson, one you would do well to focus upon.

You are not allowed to stop having fun and stop gaming your wife: Jury's out on this. I'm convinced that a man and a woman should only spend so much time together. So for those dudes spending entirely too much time with their wives, I'd say: get the fuck out of the house, if you can, or mark off some part of your domain. Personally, I can only stomach so much of my wife, and if the duration goes above a certain point, I'd rather game her fucking shitszu. Then again, I never did all this: -- | MRP = good | blue pill = bad | TRP = acne | -- for anyone else. P.S. I misinterpreted - or just misread this. Steel's right. My point was meant to be: don't spend too goddamn much time with your wife if you'd like to retain your sanity. Unless you dig spending all your time with your wife. Which is just fucking weird. And unnatural. "Come on baby, hold my hand, we'll get our nails done and then shop for dresses, yay, didn't you say you needed more cosmetics, let's grab some sprouted chia seeds as a snack" said no [m-a-n] ever.

You are not allowed to stop fucking your wife because you're stressed: Okay steele, explain how to do this. I'm sure our readers would like to know. I'd certainly like to know. I don't fuck my wife for validation. But these days, there are times when I'd rather fuck one of my beautiful coconut trees. Certainly the Japanese Maple that's blooming. How the fuck do you pull this off? Vet asking though vet doesn't particularly care, lol.

p.s. Thanks, steele… for your post and great insight. If I believed in that whole Morpheus-gay-crap that HOA is always talking about you'd be 1/2 of mine.