To Escape The Rat Race

Normal life, ordinary life or standard life?

 

 

 

I am not sure how I have to call the life path acknowledged as a standard path by most of people in current society and I have to confess that I have been struggling to fit myself into the normality recently. I know I am not the only one as I can find many similar minded people through reading numerous blogs who are trying to get out of the rat-race (a typical form of normal life, isn’t it?).  However, frankly, I feel bit isolated from the real people around me as no one seems to care about my plan on taking not-normal, not-ordinary and nonstandard life path.

Let’s talk about how we have been convinced (brainwashed?)
that our standard life should look like since we were very young.

 

• Study hard to get good marks at schools.
• Go into a good University.
•  Choose a major wisely for future job market.
• Graduate and get a good job (Well-paid, stable, etc…)
• Get married and work hard for family (9 to5, till 65)
• Work hard for buying a house, car, lifestyle, kids educations, etc..
• Work harder and longer for making more money to spend more.
• Work even harder for saving money for retirement.
• Retire at retirement age (If lucky).
• Live on aged pension or social security (If lucky).
• Ended in a nursing home (If lucky)

 

 

I hope that I realistically itemized ‘To-do list’ for the standard life path which we are supposed to follow. Is this your ideal pathway for your life? Which stage are you on at the moment? We all have been consciously and also unconsciously educated to follow this normal life path from the very young age. This education programed our brain/mind to think that taking a different pathway would lead us to a wrong (dangerous) direction. However, I am finally apprehending and being curious about ‘THE NORMAL LIFE’ because I don’t wish to live my life like that at all. How about you? Is this how you really wish to live?

 

 

This standard pathway simply cannot work because it ignores the differences between human beings. This puts all different human beings into a same wok and mixes together to make identical and tasteless life. Some lucky ones can fit in the setup but most are being struggle to fit themselves into the social perception because we all are different. This life path can create unbearable stresses. Everyone complains about their stresses nowadays. Working 9 to 5, until 65 can exhaust us to keep our life healthy and happy. We work hard to spend more and spending more forces us to work longer and harder endlessly. The saddest fact is this life path will not guarantee a comfortable life in our old age any more. How often we are told stories about countless old people who have been working all their life but have not much money left that they have to rely on government pension or social security to survive. I refuse to take the ‘NORMAL’ path not because I am a special or exceptional, only
because I believe that there must be different ways to live and enjoy my life with pleasures and happiness.

 

 

 

Hereunder are 5 ways to escape the standard pathway which I am ready to action (and, I wish you to consider, too).

 

1.   Design our own map: We all are different. We all have different views and priorities our life. We cannot push our body into someone else’s clothes that are not fit and have to live in them all our life. We need to design our own life map that suits us the best. Find out how your life should (wish to) look like and what is the most important thing to yourself and your life. Many of us try to postpone or ignore our wishes in our life by excusing our busy life routines but we need to realize that living without
achieving our wishes can be emptiness. Knowing what we really want to do in our
life and designing our own map based on our wishes will be the first step to
escape from the rat-race (Normal life).

2.  Plan own pathway as earlier as possible: Don’t delay or postpone your plan. Especially, earing financial independence requires certain time and efforts. We need to convert our spending habits into saving habits, and living more to living less. Plan now how long you want to be at the workforce and find out how to achieve the goal. I refuse to be convinced we have to spend all our life at work. Who has set the rule and why all of us to follow? If you set your own plan earlier, you will get your dream life sooner.

3.   Be free from other’s perspectives: One of the things interested me in phycology was a study that shows most people follow other people’s answers even though the answers are not correct. When I casually started talking about ‘early retirement’, most of my colleagues and friends were laughing and agreed that they wished it, too. However, once I started talking about the early retirement seriously, people’s reactions have become bit different. Yes, I am weird. Quite often we take abnormality as ‘weirdness’ or even ‘disability’. Isn’t it strange that everyone seems to want to get out of the rat-race but they think about person who tries to do it is a weirdo? Remember that no one will live your life so no one is entitled to make a decision for you and your life. Make yourself free from other’s view. It will make you to live your own life freer.

4.   Live our dream: How many years do we really need to delay living our dream for living the standard life. To match social statues, to meet other’s expectations, to buy more material things, to support luxurious lifestyle and to keep people impressed, we keep packing away our dreams for later. Tomorrow never can be same as today. If you are not ready for living your dream at this point of your life, which is absolutely fine as long as you clearly know what you want in your life and you are working towards to the dream. Don’t let your dream go away while you are trying to fit yourself
into the ‘Normal’ category. I rather be abnormal if I can live my dream.

5.   Remember that there is no rehearsal in life: We all live once and we all know about the truth. However, majority of people don’t seem to care about this and don’t mind to waste our precious day and day. Today will never come back to us as it is so, I believe we need to make best out of it. Our time is too precious to let go by doing what we don’t like to do and living how we don’t wish to live. Imagining myself to live as a normal person who diligently follows the standard life path until 65 or over is frightening. I believe that we have to try to live our life with the least regrets as it will be already too late then.

 

I know what I have written is nothing special and many of you already know or think about this. Last Wednesday when I was having dinner with my sisters, I had a nice debate with my teenager niece. I knew she doesn’t like eating vegetables so I started lecturing her that she needs to eat more vegetables for various reasons. She answered back immediately and very aggressively (she is ‘The fourteen’) that as a smart girl, she knows how important to eat vegetables ‘BUT’, she doesn’t like eating, that’s all. This was my answer back to her.  “If someone doesn’t know what is right so, she or he doesn’t do the right thing, she or he is dumb. However, if someone knows what is right but she or he doesn’t do the right thing is dumber! Don’t you recon?” She didn’t say anything back and I only hope my message could get through to her (at least little bit).

Do you know how our life should be looking life? If you know, but you don’t do? That’s all I can talk now J.