The Rat Race

Too many people push you to work your whole life to succeed. But this is a choice you need to make for yourself, but often never do. Choose your own path and values.

Before you launch into a mad endless round of work which will last you your whole life, I think spare a moment to consider where the world is pushing you. You do have a choice as to how you live your life. And there are many ways how you can choose to live your life.

Erasmus : Society heavily promotes the ethos of work. This is not a bad thing. But one should always consider where this is taking you and what choices you may have. To buy a house in the average inner city area in Australia will likely set you back $500,000-$900,000. To repay this amount of money with a partner in an average job, will probably take you most of your life.

Erasmus : Should you choose to live in the periphery of the city, a provincial city or even the country, you can purchase housing at a substantially lower cost. Properties in rural Queensland (outside Brisbane) with a quite reasonable amount of space (multi-hectare) can be had for less than $250,000.

Your problem is really more along the lines of what will you do when you're out there. You need a lot of space to farm in today's world. Farming requires economies of scale to be viable. If you do buy a multi-hectare property, how do you intend to look after it?

Even if you do have the money to purchase the property, how will you obtain income to live? Now granted if you own your own property, you do not need a lot of money to live. But you do require a certain basic amount of income. And any event of a crisis - needing to purchase a new car - illness; you will certainly be finding you need some  money quickly.

Erasmus : However if you are able to choose a life in a cheaper part of the world, you will not need to be working for ever to pay off your property. Once you own your own house and land, the amount of income you need to sustain yourself drops substantially. Most people use the bulk of their income to pay for accommodation and loans.

Kinkajou : The ethos of the rat race is: "you must work hard". If you work hard at school you will get better marks, so you can get a better job, so you can work harder, so you can get ahead, so you can earn more income, and then you can become successful.

Running the Rat Race
Erasmus :  In the medical industry this creates students who work hard all their lives, to get into a job which is a volume-based meat market - at which they can work hard all their lives - which chews up all their spare time all their life (as it demands an extensive commitment to study and maintenance of skills). And if you are a person who does not like working quickly, working hard and long consistently, this type of job may well be your definition of hell.

Erasmus : There are many variants of this piece of madness. At university they say success is becoming an academic or a researcher, Or perhaps to become a professor. Success is to drive a Ferrari. Success is to show off to others your super blonde partner and your fancy car.

Erasmus : If you go to a sectarian religious school, you are taught that you should give away everything you have (preferably to the church), devote your life to God and the church, become a priest and then you can be successful.

Kinkajou : The Important issue in all these scenarios, is that you have a choice in where you want your life to take you. Before launching into an endless round of work, think about where you want it all to go.

Erasmus : You can only do - what you can do - and that's all you can do. Have a good hard look at yourself, your interests, your energy and your goals. Pick a path in life are consistent with who you are, how you behave and where you want to be. Some things cannot be achieved without special knowledge, special abilities or unusual resources. To own and drive a Ferrari, you need to be able to afford the Ferrari. It may not be worth the sacrifices you need to make in other areas of your life to achieve this. Reasonable goals.

Kinkajou : Choices come with prices. Always assess the price to you - the time involved, the reward, the stress and discomfort required to achieve your goal. Some things are not worth doing.

Erasmus : Many people consider that they want to retire. However I have seen many people who have retired, become very disenchanted with their life. Their life has no purpose. The sitting waiting to die - marking time. Many early retirees return to some type of part-time work to give them interest and purpose in life.

Goo : So the goal of many people in the long run
is not to follow the advice of retiring early.

Goo : Perhaps better goals from the start would be:

Let's find some useful productive enjoyable work,
That gives me enough time to follow other Interests,
Work allowing part time involvement is good.

And if you can try before you buy, do so. Best to make small reversible decisions than large irreversible ones.

We all carry misconceptions about how life / things will go. Always try to see the reality in your choices, not your own dreams and ambitions.

Goo : So find accommodation suitable to your desired path in life. (This could be living on a beach. This could be living in a unit if one does not wish to be burdened with property maintenance. This could be living in a small property if one just needs a little bit of space for some extra hobbies/ activities. This could be having a property with ample garage to allow for some bigger hobbies. This could be living in a good sized rural property if you enjoy the space/the rural lifestyle/peace/a slower pace of life).

Goo : Let's have enough money available for some emergencies. (Enough money to cover the purchase of a new car, medical expenses in the event of an illness or payment of funeral expenses for family or significant others).

Goo : Let's pick some interests that are enjoyable and sustainable in your lifestyle. It is probably best to pick things that you already may be looking at doing, rather than simply dreams. If you are doing it already, you're much more likely to want to keep on doing it - albeit a greater scale.

Erasmus : One of my friends had a mate who wanted to retire, to get away from the hectic pace of accounting and to find an alternate path in life. He was getting ready to close down his accounting practice and move to Nimbin in northern New South Wales. My friend suggested to him he had worked long and hard for much of his life, he had enough money put aside to give him choices and he did not need to close down or sell his accounting practice yet. Just stop working for a few months and get someone else to cover his accounting practice for this time.
" Then you can go and try the lifestyle and see how it fits with you."

He returned after a couple months highly disenchanted. The idyllic rural lifestyle had proved to be less than idyllic. He had discovered the people living this idyllic life were ferals who never washed. He had very little desire to adapt to their lack of goals in life and to their lack of purposeful activity. He simply could not sit there doing nothing
for any period of time. He was very grateful that he had not gotten rid of his accounting practice. He decided his preferred path in life was some work and more play, and not the "alternate rural retreat"

 

Goo : So remember, We are free to make choices in life.
WE are not free to choose the consequences of our actions. So choose wisely.