Real Men Wear Pink

As you all have probably noticed by now by the mixing and mashing of pink on-field apparel players have started to wear, it is Breast Cancer Awareness month. There is a certain warm-and-fuzzy feeling one gets from seeing players from all 32 teams, who are taught to hate each other, unite for a month of the year for the benefit of a cause that has effected the majority of everyone in some way or form. Either they have fought the horrible disease to the gates of hell and won, or know someone who has.

October, being a month to celebrate those who have won their courageous battle with cancer, is also a month to remember those who were not so fortunate to survive this awful disease. Breast Cancer Awareness Month is dedicated towards finding a cure for breast cancer so less people are afflicted by its horrible impact.

Let me tell you a brief story. I have a friend named Isaac who recently watched his mother pass away due to breast cancer shortly after Christmas last year. Once Isaac discovered that his mother had breast cancer, he spent many weekends afterwards racing in 5Ks to help raise money for breast cancer research. Isaac was a mere teenager when his mother died from breast cancer. A teenager. Yet this teenager showed more manliness than all of those reading this and myself combined. Why? Because he didn't sit around and wait for a miracle to happen. He got off the sofa and did everything he possibly could to help find a cure because of his deep love for his mother.

If a teenager can do this, why can't all of us? My challenge to all of those reading this article is to do something, somehow to help eradicate this horrible disease. It can be anything from getting your whole family to get annual screenings to racing in every 5k in your state for a year. No matter how big or how small, if we all stand together as one (like the players of the NFL are doing) we can save lives. In the words of Mitch Albom "The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

If Ray Lewis and a humble teenager can do it, why can't you?