Author: Young Men Need To Be More Ambitious, Accept More Responsibility

PHILADELPHIA  (CBS) -- Jim Geraghty, the co-author of Heavy Lifting: Grow Up, Get a Job, Raise a Family, and Other Manly Advice, discussed his book and the expectations on young men in society.

Talking with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, Geraghty said that in taking responsibility, people find real happiness.

"There's a reason these are expected out of your life because these are actually what makes life worth living. I feel like there's this giant lie that's been told to young men which is that growing up, getting the real job, getting married and having kids, that these will tie you down and make you miserable and make you full of regret, when, in fact, I think it's the opposite. I think most men would say this is what makes life worth living."

He claimed that in many cases, young men are less ambitious than women today and that he hopes his book serves as a wake up call.

"By no means is it anti-women. In some ways this is very much, okay guys we've got to shape up. We've got to be a certain way, but not only because of obligation or out of duty, you're life is actually happier this way. You actually can walk around with pride and look at yourself in the mirror and know that you did something instead of sit on the couch and play video games all day."

Geraghty believes that both personal values and media characterizations have played a role in the decline of young men, and both need to be altered.

"Some of this, indisputably, is on the individual themselves. You can't help somebody who doesn't want to help themselves. It has to start with them looking at their life, seeing themselves living in their parent's basement, realizing that they don't have a real job, realizing that they don't have any good prospects on the horizon of meeting a nice girl and someday starting a family of their own and wanting something more. Once you've got that, that's the first step. I do say, also, I think a little bit of the blame does fall on society as a whole for finding married dads in suburbs as a perfect, bumbling butt of the joke."