About Me — Rick Higgins
I May Have Made a Huge Mistake …
In sixty-one years of life I have been seriously challenged. I have been physically paralyzed, I have won and lost fortunes, I have married, loved, and divorced (multiple times), and it’s only now that I even have an inkling of what life may actually be all about.
I’m also hoping that it’s not too late.
I grew up in the 1960s in a world that honestly hasn’t changed all that much. Back then societal norms shaped who we were and who we would become. Most of us didn’t stand a chance of striking out in different directions, so we blindly followed the path already laid before us.
In my case it was based in a blue-collar, all-white suburb of Washington DC. I am the son to a plumber and a housewife who followed the standards of the day and passed those beliefs on to me.
Only … those beliefs are not who I am. More on that later (it’s the important part, and why I’m teasing you into waiting).
The Early Years
The Standard American Upbringing is to have a career, get married and have children, plus acquire a house and hopefully upgrade to a larger one. I dutifully did all of those things. I married at the age of 25 because “I was supposed to”. I had children, played the real estate game until I acquired the proverbial single family home in the ‘burbs, and I also spent a lot of time climbing the corporate ladder at increasingly more lucrative and well-known technology companies.
I made my father proud because all he wanted was for me to outshine him. To make more money, to have a larger house, and basically be an extension of the life that he started … only extending it further until I could pass it forward to the next generation.
And yet all along I knew that I wasn’t following my own path. But I also knew that unless I had unlimited confidence and strength, I wasn’t going to be able to break free of expectations and discover what truly made me happy.
The Crisis
That marriage failed after thirteen years, along with another serious relationship immediately after. And then I hit the jackpot. I married into the life that I had been told was the epitome of success.
I had reached the apex.
Suddenly money wasn’t an issue. We had more than enough. I was rubbing elbows with Governors, Senators, and those who had even more wealth and funded the former into power. I traveled wherever and whenever I wanted. Stayed in the best hotels. I had reached the pinnacle that my father had set as my target.
And I was miserable.
This was not my then wife’s fault. Nor was it any of the people with whom I socialized. It was just that I was living their lives and not my own. The problem was … I had no idea what that life was supposed to be. I just knew what it wasn’t.
In the end, after ten years of that “successful” marriage, I fled a thousand miles south to a city where I knew exactly no one. A city that I knew virtually nothing about. There to try to discover who I really was … and what I wanted to be.
Introspection
Back in high school I was in the drama department, mainly to meet girls and participate in the inevitable cast parties after a show’s premiere. But what I didn’t know at the time was how important that activity was to become forty-some years later.
When graduation time came I had to make a decision. What was I to do with my life? College? Business? Something else?
I was leaning towards the latter when my father stepped in. I wanted to explore my options. Find what ticked with me. He pointed out that I would be a minimum-wage bum who had no hope of making it in the world unless I took the job that he had pre-arranged for me.
Decisions, decisions. Go down the corporate path and strive for financial success? Take random jobs and spend a couple of years exploring the world beyond my limited upbringing?
I became a bank teller.
That job quickly led to computer automation (it’s hard to remember a time when banks didn’t have computers, but there I was). I learned everything possible about programming and moved up through a dozen companies, honing and expanding my skills. America Online, WorldCom, Capital One, just to name a few. I was respected and my salary showed it.
Dad was proud.
But I also could never shake the fact that I wasn’t living a life that fit me. It wasn’t until the pandemic and its multi-year lockdown that courage finally found me.
In late 2021, I burned out. Couldn’t take it one more minute. So I quit my career of over forty years (calling it a sabbatical in order to make it more palatable) and decided to go out into the world to find my answers.
Which brings us to today.
Too Late?
Looking back, those days in high school drama were indeed some of my happiest times. But not for the parties. Rather because I got to be creative. That unholy notion that horrified my father so much (artists can never make a living, he once told me). Whatever path I would eventually walk had to have creativity at its core.
I love to write. To craft stories and mental imagery out of words. So I took that and extended it to visual media and started a YouTube channel, where I found even more creative energy and pleasure. (My niche being exactly what I’ve described to you today, living an intentional life on your own terms.)
I currently live in a converted school bus (a “skoolie”) with my girlfriend, traveling wherever we can. Technically unemployed, surviving on savings, and generally having the time of our lives. I have discovered exactly what makes me happy and I’m doing everything I can to embrace it with everything I’ve got.
And yet, life always seems to find a way to challenge you.
My life savings, all of the retirement money that I squirreled away, is almost gone. And diesel fuel is seriously expensive. At some point I’m going to have to return “to work”, whatever the hell that means. It will probably wind up being some form of what I was doing because YouTube and Medium certainly aren’t all that lucrative, at least not yet.
I’m also 61, turning another year older in less than a month. With a near zero 401k balance. And with the ever-ticking clock of time getting louder and louder, despite the fact that I’ve found my joy, I still need to live.
How that’s going to happen is a story yet written. But regardless of how it turns out, I’m sure it’s going to be an interesting one to write about.
Thanks for reading!
If you’d like some behind the scenes information on this article or any other aspect of this little journey called slow life, head on over to The Sloth Club. It’s absolutely free!
And for links to everything else … RickHiggins.com is the place to be.
~ Rick
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