Why? Not because 24 is too easy- though it is, I’m sure everyone did it with their buddies in high school. It’s because 48 hours means that there was something- a job, a passion, a sincerely professional bender, an emergency- that you couldn’t look away or disassociate yourself from for two (2) days.
Here’s the thing, though- you can’t do it just to say that you did. After you read this, you can say, ‘Hey Friendo, want to stay up for two straight days drinking?’ but that doesn’t mean you can check this step off the list. It’s got to come about 
organically. If, tomorrow night, after a crushing nine to five shift, happy hour turns into gin martinis at the diner as you watch the sun come up, only to run into some charming ladies on their way to the craft beer festival where they’re running the Smuttynose 
tent, and they, entertained thoroughly by your drunken hijinx, invite you and your partners in crime to tag along, where you enthrall the masses with your jovial elbow-bending and riotous drinking songs, until finally, their shift over, said ladies take you back to a dingy apartment in Alphabet City for some afternoon delight, which is just barely not interrupted by her/their boyfriends coming home, leading into a spilling-out-into-the-street knuckle dust-up, until you are finally picked up by the cops and taken to the Tombs, where you all end up making friends with the jackaloons you brawled with and alternately watching out for signs of butt-rape, to finally get a well deserved respite after being released on your own recognizance by the judge at approximately 8:30 a.m.
If you can do this, well then not only can you check off number 1,112, but you can also check off numbers 4, 94, 122, 123, 844, 4,657, and 9,999. Wouldn’t you like to know what those are?
But in reality, there are a million better reasons to stay up forty-eight hours, and I will list them all now:
No, no I won’t. But shit, my buddy is in his residency, and I know he was up longer 
than that while still in med school, so he’s probably playing in the majors (60+ hours) now, and I know my cousin was up for longer than that on 9/11, and those bad men and women in uniform would probably be glad if it was only forty-eight hours they were asked to stay up.
In marathoning, they say that at some point you hit a wall, and it’s all about being mentally able to push through that wall. When you’re staying up forty-eight hours, I imagine there are at least four or five walls that need pushing through. I’ll let you know after I’ve done it.
Ultimately, that’s what I’ll be talking about here, being mentally and/or physically able to get through obstacles. So don’t be a punk-ass and bitch out on me.
The Step- Stay up for forty-eight straight hours.
Have I done it yet- nope.
This author’s total man points- still a pitiful 0.
The 10,000 Steps to Becoming a Man. 