Why you are trapped in the rat race with the fear of losing yourself

Let’s talk about the rat race today.

Wikipedia defines the rat race as follows:

A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of lab rats racing through a maze to get the “cheese” much like society racing to get ahead financially.

We are all part of a system in which we must evolve to be successful in life.  We were told long time ago that if we follow the school system and graduate from top universities, we will get a good job, do what we love in life and die happy.  You may have spent around 25 years of your life studying for a better future.  Of course you struggled a lot because of the workload and the soporific effect of some teachers.

However, in general, you’re happy.  You developed your skills, you learned interesting topics, you met great people and you figured out how to succeed in the courses that you hated or that bored you deeply.  Great, you’re ready for the big jump in the labor market, ready to repay your student debt if you were not born in the right country.

At least now that you got your diploma, the World sees you as a clever person and the depth of your knowledge can be widely spread.

Depending on your background and your country of origin, your experience with entering the labor market may vary.  If you’re lucky you manage to get a well paid job and companies want you at any price.  But if you spent your time at the University learning Ancient Greek, you may struggle a bit more unless you’re a self-taught learner in some IT fields.

So you enter the job market, your family is so proud of you! You’re a good boy/girl.

After the first brainwashing of your school years, you are still malleable for your employer.  You’re young, flexible, and full of energy.  Okay, your salary is not the one you would have dreamed before, but you make a living and you are independent.  Isn’t it the perfect paradise?  Of course, you have to do things your manager want you to do, you do a lot of extra hours and you spend part of your time doing things that have no sense except giving you the right to receive your salary and not to sleep with these poor homeless people in the street.

Time flies, you should always run as fast to make your boss happy.  Maybe if you work hard enough and you have the right personality, you will become the boss and make other work as you did.  However, in the rat race, you always have a boss above you.

As the years pass and you jump from one job to another one, you keep building your life.  Your expenses grow faster than your salary.  If you don’t have a company car, you buy one.  You go on holidays when you finally have a few days off.  You spend your hard-earned money as you know you will earn more money after.  Maybe you get married, you have children, you live the fairytale or you divorce.  You notice that regardless of your salary, your expenses, bills, credit card and mortgage eat most of your savings.

You will never escape.  You will have to work more and more for other people by putting your other personal projects aside.  For the time when you will be old.  That’s a game without a happy end.

Now you’re old.  You spent most of your life working for things that don’t matter.  That’s great if you loved your jobs and therefore you can stop reading this article.

If you’re not concerned,  today is the perfect time to realize that you are currently exchanging your most valuable asset – your time – for the dream of some random CEO and shareholders.

Maybe it is the good time to understand that you are part of the rat race.

A race that ends when your productivity decreases with your age.  Or when you’re too expensive for your company compared to the young rats leaving University.

Up to you to decide that you deserves to be more than a rat.

It takes time to escape this race on time but if you struggle and take good decisions you can succeed.

The key to success will be to separate your income from your working time, and at the end let the money and rats work for you.

The World will always be full of rats hoping to get their freedom.  Stop being one of them if you’re not satisfied with what you do for a living.  And if you like being a rat somehow for the moment, gaining more freedom with income diversification is always good to take.

This will be the subject of an upcoming article!

Have fun