To quote Jules from Pulp Fiction … I had what alcoholics refer to as a ‘Moment of Clarity’ the other day.

The problem was that I had no idea what to do about it.

Here’s the scenario: Driving in Miami requires concentration. People will exit a highway from the far opposite lane at the last minute. Turn signals are never used. And honking is both a form of communication (“hi, how’s it going?”) as much as a way of weaponizing ones impatience.

I was doing the latter.

To give myself some credit, I wasn’t honking because the green light was almost finished brightening up and the damn car in front of me still hadn’t moved! No, I was honking because as usual the idiot in front of me was looking down at his phone and the light was already cycling back to yellow.

I realized in that moment that I didn’t want to be the Angry Guy anymore. So I vowed to relax and take things a little easier. Maybe that idio … er … person in front of me was texting his father who was in the hospital (or something equally sad). Maybe I should just … HONK! … what IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU PIECE OF ….

OK, I still needed some work.

Let’s talk Daddy Issues. It’s a big part of this story. Like every other male born in the 1960s, I had a father I had to live up to. I had the expectations from society that I would grow up and make it my sole mission in life to provide for and to protect my family. I was raised to be a rock.

And so during my 20s through my late 40s that’s exactly what I did. Nothing else mattered except managing my family’s financial and physical safety, and teaching my children the same levels of strong independence that I was taught. The strong chain of family would continue. Only, I had failed to account for one very real threat … ourselves.

When I was a teenager I had a secret dream. Sure I responded correctly when asked about my future plans (“Yes Dad, I want to make lots of money to support my family!”). But inside I wanted to follow my creative side. I wanted to be an actor.

Now here’s the thing, that side of me was rarely encouraged. I felt like I was hiding in a creative closet so my father wouldn’t look down on my desires. He was all about sports, working with your hands, and doing better financially than the generation before. I was all about making folks feel something with just my words. A basic conflict, obviously.

Anyway, I tell the story of that humble beginning because it plays into the previous treatise on Miami Honking. There is a reason I’m often so angry.

The bottom line is that when one allows his or her self to conform to a shape that isn’t natural, one feels trapped. I’ve always known that and to this day I constantly push against those walls, trying to find a shape that fits me best. More money, bigger career, frugal living, no career. I’ve run away to a live in dozens of places, dozens of times. And I’ve even tried settling in to where I was. And yet nothing was moving those ill-shaped walls.

But there was still one thing that I hadn’t yet tried to alter. My pace of life. And I hadn’t tried unlearning what I had been taught as a kid.

I have a YouTube channel which I started back in 2019. I had this vision of quitting my job in IT and becoming an online presence. The 21st century version of that actor I had always wanted to be. I studied the craft with a passion and tried so many niches to find the best fit. Relationships, cooking, travel, tiny home living, the list was long. And nothing was working. Even as I write this, I’m still way below the minimum standards for becoming “monetized”, YouTube’s initial level of success.

So I decided to quit.

All of this was flowing through my head as I was honking yet again at another “driver” on the Florida Turnpike. I was trying so hard to find my success, my joy and passion. And that’s when the moment of clarity hit me. Perhaps the answer wasn’t in running in yet another direction … but what if the solution was to change my pace? What if I just … slowed down?

That sounds like horrible advice, doesn’t it? You want to get somewhere special so the best way to even discover that place is to walk slower?

The thing is, this epiphany was not something I came up with. It’s a real thing and it has a name. Slow Living.

Now I personally hate this name, mostly because of the first word. The movement comes in many forms … Slow Cities, Slow Gardening, Slow This, and Slow That. I dislike the word “slow” because it’s (a) not what the movement is really all about and (b) I hate being slow.

At first glance, Slow Living feels like a popular “blog topic”. My very first Google search result was …

“I combed the internet, read hundreds of articles, watched tons of videos, and checked out all the books, blogs, forums, and podcasts. This 3-part post series is intended to give you all the highlights and help you get started with slow living.”

Hmmm, that doesn’t sound so slow to me. Maybe this is something that I can get behind. 😉

Why do some people cling to ‘isms’ instead of just practicing them? And by that I mean a lot of folks simply want a formal religion-style paradigm to follow. Rules and checkboxes to adhere to. Maybe instead we should all just … slow down and smell the flowers? I wasn’t sure why it had to be so complicated. Why it had to be so “zen” and organized.

And then I started reading a book called The Slow Movement: “In Praise of Slowness” by Carl Honoré. He is credited as being the father of Slow Living and I figured I might as well start there. And what I found in his words surprised me.

He wasn’t preaching, he was struggling. Actively struggling with many of the same problems as I was. Pressures from family, society, and just the ever increasing pace of life that technology and fast food were thrusting upon him. He didn’t have answers that he quietly practiced while wearing monk’s robes and a wry smile of mastery. He was just as messed up as I, and was simply trying to find reason.

Which led me back to Google and YouTube to again look at what others thought of Slow Life. Only this time I wanted to see everything with an open mind. There is no formal society for the movement. No absolute rules to follow. In fact, the point is to find what works for you … as long as you do it in a purposeful and intentional way, allowing distractions to fall by the wayside.

And that’s when I realized that all of the problems that I had struggled with were caused by absolutes. My adherence to following a proscribed path. It wasn’t whether “My Rules” or “Their Rules” won. Because there really are no hard and fast rules.

So perhaps I found a way out? A way to lessen the honking (it wasn’t toot or not toot, just to toot when I really wanted to toot). I had a way to look at my YouTube channel … and by extension these words on Medium … not just in terms of success, but of enjoyment. I had a new way of thinking that could possibly lead to the life I had always envisioned.

All I had to do was … slow down?

OK, that’s simply not going to happen. I don’t do slow. I don’t want to do slow. I’m going to be writing articles and scripts every damn day. Filming, editing, obsessing over analytics … I don’t work any other way.

But!

I can learn to live without distractions. Without anger over what’s happening in the lives and actions of others. Putting aside my desire to refute past lessons from my forbearers. So I’m now exploring what Slow Living means to me. Sharing it with others so they can find their own version, if that’s their desire. And for the first time in a long time I’m truly optimistic.

Now if only that old dude in front of me will just make the damn turn before the light turns red …