I'm closer to being happy. I'm doing things that make me happy. In football I loved to practice and I loved to play, but I hated to be in meetings, hated to talk to the media, hated to have cameras in my face, hated to sign autographs. I hated to do all those things.

I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.

Human beings aren't supposed to be controlled and told what to do.

I think Ricky Williams had his time in the limelight. And I think it was good for what it was worth, and that was that.

I think sometimes when it comes to sports, and especially relationships between players and coaches, that people lose track, lose a sense of reality.

It's something that I had been pushing down my whole life. The search for meaning, I guess, the whispering of the soul.

Everywhere I go, people hear Ricky Williams and the next thing they think is marijuana or wasted talent.