We all remember our fascination with the physical prowess of brawny men. There’s something about the mustaches, the short shorts, the faded pictures of big eye glasses, and slabs of meat for traps. I was 23 when I started 70sBig.com. 

I had some sort of infatuation with masculinity. I don’t think it was particularly toxic or misguided, though I look back and cringe at things I wrote and said. Given I had a history playing contact sports and lifting, I was impressed with tales of physical prowess. I wanted to be big and strong because I didn’t feel it inside.

I didn’t aim to glorify masculinity, but to exude it in a respectable way. You may remember the satirical trilogy acting as a call to arms in order to be fashionably masculine. The claim was wearing short shorts, flannel, and tank-tops amusingly portrayed your brawniness and physical progress. And we shouldn’t be afraid to do so if the style wasn’t weird or creepy.

Given that this theme stuck with me for so many years, I feel obligated to update my position. Masculinity is just a construct representing men, and it changes with time. As with any personality construct, letting it consume your identity typically results in losing a sense of self in order to be something else. Any specific personality trait does not fully define an individual. 

I hope I was clear in my younger years about how masculinity is not being a dickhead. I always had an aversion to Tommy Tough Guyism, and that continued when I was in Special Forces. I had a Sergeant Major routinely ask people if they wanted to fight, or randomly proclaiming he could kick someone’s ass. Regardless of why he was like that, he wasn’t cool. 

There’s something in men that makes them feel they have to prove themselves. Maybe it’s the lingering concepts of masculinity we have from past generations. Imagine what living through World War II was like. Fighting for the liberation of your people was considered heroic, and there are men who carry guilt for not fighting in their country’s war. As someone who has been to war and seen all of its faces, I reject this concept. 

Being a man doesn’t mean finding the most difficult tasks and overcoming them. We hear stories of these deeds dating back to Odysseus, and it’s ingrained in our world view. From a philosophical point of view, I would label this as “unnecessary suffering”. Life is inherently full of unavoidable and heartbreaking suffering. At some point, you or everyone you love will die. It’s unavoidable. So, in between bouts of unavoidable suffering, we benefit from seeking out the beauty life entails. 

There are some forms of suffering we partake in on purpose, such as exercising and training. We know we are doing something to cause mild damage in order to produce an improved adaptation. The intention matters because we do it to improve something specific about ourselves. 

But mental and emotional improvement don’t follow the same trajectory. Yes, you can inoculate yourself to stress and hardship. In Special Forces training, I didn’t eat for ten days and didn’t sleep for five. I carried men on my back while carrying a heavy ruck. I have also maneuvered and destroyed the enemy in combat. Yet I was wired for war and experienced crippling depression and trauma symptoms. 

My capability to withstand stress, suffering, and pain is beyond anything I thought was possible. But it doesn’t make me more of a man. It just means I’ve been through some awful shit. And it doesn’t mean you have to experience anything similar to me. Comparing suffering lacks self-compassion, because if someone has suffered more, inadequacy blooms. Regardless of the relative intensity of your suffering, it still matters and deserves respect.

Just because you haven’t faced the same things as me doesn’t mean you don’t suffer, or that you aren’t worthy of acknowledging it. If you got a comfortable job and built a family, and you love them with all your heart, that is the most wonderful thing I can imagine. And it doesn’t have anything to do with being a man or masculinity. 

Partaking in avoidable suffering should always raise the question of whether it’s necessary. If a guy does something just because it’s hard, why? Why is there a need to do something hard in the first place? What is underneath the layers driving him to do such a thing? I’m not saying you should avoid volitional suffering, but to be aware of why you do it and the expected result. 

Tommy Tough Guys typically have a low self-esteem which makes them project a level of assertive aggressiveness to make up for it. This can come out in antagonistic behavior, insults, and so on. This isn’t manly; it’s being a dickhead. 

One of the tenets of 70s Big was encouraging people to compete in athletics, particularly powerlifting or Olympic weightlifting. I guess my opinion was society generally lacked effective competition in adulthood, and it can teach useful qualities (e.g. goal setting, adherence, inspiration, etc). It also creates a state of ownership about one’s training; once they sign up for a competition, there’s a different focus on the process of training. If someone is drifting in life, even with a family and secure job, then competition can inject excitement into their hobby. This can be a good thing.

Seeking competition as a means of validation or to claim superiority seems an unhealthy paradigm bordering on obsession. We benefit from understanding why we truly want to do a thing. We lift weights and perform conditioning or cardio for the varied health, performance, and aesthetic benefits. But something can happen at any time that forever prevents you from doing those things. 

If you get into a car wreck and lose one or both legs, you may never squat the same. You may not be able to do some movements at all. This happened to me with my injury. I was known as “Thighs” at various points in my career and I loved to squat and power clean. Training was my life and supported my livelihood of conducting combat operations wearing 100lbs of kit. In a single instant, all of that exploded. 

I could squat to a box right now with less weight than what I used to warm-up with. Yet my amputations were so traumatic, significant activity will cause skin or bone issues. And I can’t even bend my knees enough to do a full squat when I wear my prosthetics. While I can do a squatting motion, it isn’t the same. 

My identity is inherently different. I cannot physically do the same things any more. Am I less of a man? Am I less Justin than before because my muscular legs and balls were blown off? The things we do or how we look don’t make us a man; how we behave and treat people does.

Manliness isn’t about raising boys to be men. It isn’t about having a subservient wife. It isn’t about de-feminizing a school system. It isn’t about owning and showing off guns and knives. It isn’t about being in combat. It isn’t about fighting other men. It isn’t refusing to wear a mask or receive a vaccination. And it certainly isn’t some ethos we are obligated to spread as gospel. It’s just a construct, and it’s different depending on who you ask. 

The clothes you wear, the things you lift, and the deeds you do don’t make you a man. What makes you a man, or a good person, is how you behave and treat people. You can be hairy, brawny, and full of compassion. You can also be skinny-fat and love your family deeply. Consistently being a good person means more than any label you give your identity. And making a point to be good in the present always matters. 

I’ve been fortunate enough to lead infantrymen in combat. When they leave the military, they routinely struggle with purpose and meaning. To me it seems akin to a projection of what we ought to be doing to matter, just like a projection of how masculine we should be. It’s not to say serving your country or competing in lifting won’t give you direction, but they aren’t the only ways to do so. 

Personally, I have learned the purpose in life is to love and connect with the people who matter. And that’s attainable by anyone regardless of circumstance, strength, and prowess. It’s possible to have an experience that changes everything about you. So, if you place any personality traits on a pedestal, it may be worth reevaluating your values in life. And you don’t have to live up to anyone’s idea of what you should be. You certainly don’t have to listen to screaming Navy SEALs or professional tough guys. 

If you think I’m tough and have overcome hardship, then let me be a new version of a Tough Guy for you: you are worthy right now without changing anything. You don’t need anything different to become a man. Lifting PRs and combat stories fade in time, but you can be an honorable and valued person at any time in the day. And it’ll have a greater impression on your life and those around you than shooting or lifting weights. By all means, enjoy those things, but we need your kindness in a world full of unavoidable suffering. 

Thanksgiving is a weird fabricated holiday that has its origins in genocide. However, giving thanks – or said another way – expressing gratitude, is wildly beneficial for the brain. There have been a variety of studies exhibiting this, including on participants seeking mental health treatment.

In one study, the group that wrote a letter of gratitude to someone each week for three weeks had significant better mental health at four and twelve weeks compared to the control group and a group who wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings about negative experiences. In other words, doing just several sessions of gratitude had a persistent emotional improvement for months after doing it. Consider incorporating this practice into your routine, perhaps even complemented by care package cookies to show appreciation in a tangible way.

Gratitude inherently has more positive words and feelings associated with it. Specifically, the association with using fewer negative words seemed to contribute to the results above. As someone who can spiral with negativity very easily (pain, loss, sadness, anxiety, etc.), this is very interesting, there’s a reason why I’m always thinking of visiting the Stiiizy dispensary locations. It may also help improve your mental health if you take a vacation and stay at a Flagstaff hotel.

Oh, and the participants still felt the benefits of gratitude when they didn’t even send the letter they wrote to the intended recipient. However, my personal experience with expressing gratitude to someone I care about is scary, yet it is the very definition of ordinary courage that Brene Brown talks about in “The Gifts of Imperfection”. Doing so strengthens the connection and bond with that person.

Expressing gratitude promotes more positive thinking and less negative thinking. It’s difficult to do in the throes of suffering, which is why I recommend dedicating time to express gratitude. Today is a perfect opportunity to start, but it shouldn’t happen once a year. Regularly contemplate what you’re grateful for and explore why. I find journaling to be a great time to do this because it allows a better organization of thoughts and is a deliberate practice. Set time aside for gratitude as it will have monumental effects.

While there are immediate effects of doing this – such as improving acute emotions – the full benefit takes time to develop. Behavioral and thought habits rarely change instantaneously; to make something a habit you have to make it a habit. Also, brain adaptations don’t spontaneously occur. You must expose your physiology to the new stimulus and function for it to adapt. There are literal structural neural adaptations occurring in the brain resulting from expressing gratitude.

fMRI supports this. Gratitude activates regions of the brain associated with learning, rational thinking, and decision making. There are regions of the brain that interact with each other for given tasks. Negative emotions yield a particular circuitry connection while positive emotions like gratitude and compassion result in a different kind of network connection. Coupled with a difference in neurotransmitters (brain chemicals), there are no-shit changes to how the brain functions as well adaptations that result from this improved networking. This isn’t just a matter of feelings; you can literally change and improve the form and function of the brain. All from simple tasks like gratitude journaling.

If we can do things in our day that improve our brain physiology resulting in hundreds of improvements to include disease prevention, then why wouldn’t we regularly do those tasks in the same way we exercise for our hearts, blood vessels, and muscles?

Pretty fucking good question, huh?

Take a deep, luxurious breath. How’s it feel? It probably feels like the millions of breaths before it. It’s hard to even notice that it’s a free breath because it’s so common. You’re an American breathing freely while pursuing your life’s happiness. Historically speaking, there are thousands of men and women who sacrificed in order to maintain the freeness of these breaths, this freedom, that we take for granted.

We created a holiday, Memorial Day, that is supposed to honor the service members who committed the ultimate sacrifice – losing their life in the service of their country. Yet it has turned into a weekend of debauchery and gluttony.

Regardless of your political view on war, the recent wars, or the military itself, this is a day to acknowledge both the sacrifice and the reason for it. Most of the time when a young adult swears to defend the Constitution of the United States of America via military service, they are doing so because they believe they are serving the country. Our “country” includes all of the people in it, regardless of race, gender, or any other discriminatory identifier. And the service member knowingly makes a decision that reduces their freedom in hopes that it benefits both the country and everyone that exists in it.

While it’s true a service member has chosen their path of their own volition, it doesn’t mean the sacrifices are not multiple and varied. For years, I’ve written essays about this. Service members are told how to look, what to where, where to live, and what to do every day. They are often sent on training trips away from their family. And the silly bastards who choose to fight or support the combat arms are subjected to a litany of annoying discomfort, pain, and environmental duress. Deployments take service members overseas into war zones and third world countries. And if this wasn’t enough – being away from family and sacrificing freedom – people die. Friends die. Brothers and sisters die. And for the survivors, their reward is living with the physical and emotional effects of it all, including chemicals in the air, burn pits, horrible food, TBIs, and being worn down from wearing 50 to 100 pounds of additional gear on a regular basis. Children miss their parents, relationships end, hearts break, and suicide rates remain high.

I know all of this because I’ve fucking done it. I’ve trained for war at the expense of attending weddings, destroying relationships, and degrading my body. I’ve served in war and have almost been hit by RPGs, mortars, and machine gun fire. And now, after heart break and rebirth, I barely escaped death one more time after I stepped on an IED. The blast took its toll; I’m a double below the knee amputee. My testicles were blown off and I don’t know if the frozen samples taken from my body will allow me to father children. I’m just one person, just a regular dude who loves combat. But I’m not the only one.

We still regularly lose good men, good friends like Will Lindsay. I know there’s a lot of us, including his family, that would give anything to have him alive, even if he were a double amputee. For those who have faced the horrors of war, the aftermath is often a battle in itself. The wounds aren’t just physical but run deep into the soul, leaving scars that can’t always be seen.

In the quiet moments after the chaos of war, when the echoes of gunfire fade but the memories remain, many veterans find themselves wrestling with the unseen battles within. The weight of loss, the pain of injury, and the torment of unanswered questions can linger long after the dust has settled. It’s in these moments of introspection that some turn to a different kind of guidance. Seeking answers through psychic questions, they hope to find a sense of peace or clarity, a way to make sense of the sacrifices made and the path that lies ahead. While nothing can erase the past, sometimes the search for understanding can provide a flicker of light in the darkness, offering a connection to something greater, something beyond the battlefield.

Americans celebrate Memorial Day by partying, drinking, and feasting throughout a long weekend. But I humbly ask you to do two things. First, please take a moment to memorialize the fallen brothers and sisters. Consider their families and what happens in the aftermath of their deaths. And also remember those who live on with significant deficits. Second, after you’re done barbequing, the best way you can thank the fallen is by living as honorable a life as you can. Memorialize them by working hard for success and showing compassion to your fellow Americans and humans of the world. It’s the best celebration of freedom I can think of.

The life of a service member is not all shit and death. The point is that the people who do it believe they are doing it for you. For everyone. And themselves. And that they would die for you to maintain the right to criticize them is proof enough that it’s an amazing sacrifice. And they do die. And you don’t know their names. And that’s okay, because most of us don’t want a pat on the back. Instead, remember the fallen and live as honorably as you can on this Memorial Day and beyond. Lest we forget.