If you’re an avid reader of this website, you know that over the last 6 years I have struggled with a “direction” for my little corner of the internet. Originally this website was about the changes I went through when I first turned 30 and decided to get healthy and all that entailed. Those are also the posts that I never bothered to recover after this site got hacked a couple of years ago.

Having a journal of how much working out sucked when I was fat wasn’t what I was after. Shortly after that is when I was diagnosed with heart failure, and the struggles that entailed. My writing shifted more to telling old stories and generally trying to lighten the mood while internally I was falling apart like a piece of Ikea furniture assembled by drunken midgets – or “little people” – whatever is politically correct and doesn’t piss people off.

That personal hell of drunken depression that lead up to my quintuple bypass in June of 2016 was my own little dirty secret. I could slap on a smile while falling apart with the best of them.

Waking up from that surgery was the turning point in my life. Something about dying a couple of times tends to change someone’s mindset if they let it. I opened myself up to the idea that the man I’d been for 34 years was the one that died that day. I’m the guy that woke up. Although that’s not technically literally correct, it’s a concept that I have embraced. It’s my own personal credo.

At some point I had to quit tearing myself apart for all the mistakes I’d made. Like I wrote in my last post, I had to cage my personal demons and poke them with a stick from time to time to remind myself that they don’t own me anymore. I took a year, maybe a little longer, to really get my mental shit together.

All my life I’ve seen happiness as this tangible thing that we can wrap our hand around and wrangle. I looked for it in fruitless pursuits. What I didn’t realize is that happiness is a mindset. It’s not something you find – it is something you are. You’re not a dolphin because you’re in the water – you’re a dolphin because you can do that weird squeaking thing and get rapey with divers. True story – dolphins are rapers – look it up.

My point, other than dolphins being terrible animals, is that happiness is something you DO, not something you want. Every single day you’ve got to find something to hold on to that makes you happy. The simpler that thing is – the easier it is to obtain. I have the absolute blessing to simply be happy waking up. Sure, I had to go through the process of having waking up not being something I was even remotely guaranteed, and you don’t have to go through anything that traumatic.

There was actually a time I was scared to fall asleep because I was worried I wouldn’t wake up. NOW, every time my alarm goes off I think to myself “Thank you, Universe. I get another chance to enjoy another day.” It’s that easy for me. The minute I let go of all that other bullshit I associated with my notion of “happy”, happy was something I became.

The point for writing all of this is because I’ve decided on more of a “direction” for this site. When I first started writing for a living, I had the IMMENSE pleasure of writing for a website called I Heart Intelligence. They had a massive Facebook following, and I was able to put my words in front of MILLIONS of readers. As a writer, you can imagine the mindjob it is to look at Google analytics and see that 1.5 million people have read an article you wrote. The sense of accomplishment and pride in my work that I felt stoked an ego that eventually crumbled in the face of an illness I couldn’t shake. In the end I’m left with great memories, great friends in Milen and Stan who own the site, and an awesome collection of writing that I’m very proud of. It’s my legacy here on this funny little planet that will last as long as the hosting bills get paid, and the robots don’t take over. Although, now that an Uber automated car has already claimed its first victim, the robots might be coming sooner than we thought.

I talked to the guys at I heart Intelligence, and they have been gracious enough to let me re-post some of my stuff from there here. So, get ready for that.

The purpose for this website will not only be to tell the stories from my life that I think need to be told, but also to endow you all with some knowledge. I’m not at all opposed to being a spiritual guru, and I will take the responsibility gladly. Together, we are going to balance the fuck out of those energies.

Tags: direction, hapiness, intelligence, justin gammill