So you say that the rat race provides Education, Jobs for life, Reacreation, Entertainment, Health care, Income in retirement etc which sounds great. All I have to do is work 9-5 to pay for it right? Doesn’t sound too bad. What’s the catch? Well, let’s look at some stats.
- 90% of people are unhappy in work (source)
And what are the reasons for people being unhappy at work?
- You don’t get on with your boss
- You don’t get on with your co-workers
- Your job isn’t rewarding
- You don’t believe in the work you are doing
- You feel stagnant
- You are underpaid
- You are overworked
- You feel unnapreciated (source)
The rat race and retail therapy
I did say that the rat race provides work for everyone to benefit from what it offers but I didn’t say that the work it offers is a place of utopian loveliness and you wake up every Monday morning itching to start your day. Quite the opposite. You need that monthly pay check to keep your lifestyle going so you have to grin and bear the drudgery of deadlines, pressures, political skulduggery, backstabbing co-workers and company protocols. You are given KPI’s ( Key performance indicators) to keep you locked into the corporate ethos.
So what do you do to keep yourself going? You indulge in a bit of RETAIL THERAPY; a little shopping spree to buy stuff you really don’t need in order to make you feel good about being stuck in the rat race. However, the lift you feel from you little shopping spree is only short lived and soon enough the system drags you back down into it’s humdrum existence of work-home-school.
Musicians have tried to tell us about the rat race but we’re too busy tapping away to the melody we don’t listen to the message.
Pink Floyd- Another brick in the wall
We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom, teacher leave us kids alone. All in all we’re just another brick in the wall.
Supertramp-The logical Song
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical. But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, Logical, oh responsible, practical, And they showed me a world where I could be so dependableOh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical. I said, watch what you say or they’ll be calling you a radical, Liberal, oh fanatical, criminal, Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re acceptable. respectable, oh presentable, a VEGETABLE.
The Verve- Bitter Sweet Symphony
Cause it’s a bittersweet symphony, that’s life, Tryna make ends meet, you’re a slave to money then you die
Being comfortable in the rat race
But it becomes kinda comfortable so you live with it whilst secretly wishing, perhaps envying those that have managed to escape, managed to create income streams without having to sign up to the 9-5 treadmill of life. Of course there is only one persons life I am describing here. One person that used to live in the rat race and be part of the 90% that was unhappy at work and life in general. And that person is ME!
I had the big house, the daily car, sports car, classic car, motorbike, motorhome, cinema system, expensive holidays AND the dead end job to pay for it all. I was living one pay check away from bankruptcy and I was miserable. I now have no debt, passive income streams and the financial freedom to travel the world. I couldn’t be happier. If you want to know how I did it, click on the next blog to find out more.
It’s hard to be non-conformant to begin with and it feels strange. But so liberating once you’ve settled in.