How to stop being a rat in the rat race
When you were a little kid, how many times did an adult ask you: what do you want to be when you grow up? It’s the question we’ve been asked since we were old enough to talk. I didn’t have specific dreams about what kind of grown-up I wanted to be. I thought like most successful people, I would like to be rich but even that thought didn’t have much specificity attached to it. When it came time to apply for college and pick a major, I probably would’ve chosen undecided, but my dad thought this was a bad idea and told me to pick economics because it was the most “practical” one. In college, I followed the economics major academic track. Most of those classes like economics, econometrics, calculus, etc. were boring.
My favorite academic semester was one where I studied abroad in Copenhagen with a core focus on positive psychology. This track (with the learnings, trips, and experiences) stands out as the most influential academic experience and the start of many awakenings in life. At the end of college, I headed towards a prestigious investment banking job because I did not know what else an economics major from a liberal arts school was supposed to do. I would spend the next eight years post-graduation desperately trying to find a job that I could like and feel good about. During this period, I didn’t have any specific dreams other than “finding my passion” and on the flip side, retiring early. Ironically, I’m pretty sure if you actually believe in finding your passion, you wouldn’t want to retire early.
One of the best parts of taking a mini retirement was re-orienting my life around well, life—instead of work. It opened up something inside of me that realized that I could never be fulfilled the way I wanted with a job because life is so much bigger than that. I am so much greater that that. I never understood the people who would tell me that their job was just a job and a way to fund their life outside of work. I didn’t understand how people could see work as just a paycheck. But, getting away from any work environment gave me a chance to get out of the rat race—to see that no matter how far you climb up the corporate ladder, you’re still a big, fat rat. Instead of forcing myself to fit roles, jobs, and work environments that were not a good fit for me, I started to listen to what I wanted and needed to build a life that I could really dream about.
Lately, I have started to have specific dreams about the life I am building towards. Here are a few:
Spending part of the year in Korea and part of the year in the US, with some travel sprinkled in between
Owning an alpaca farm and getting to spend time with these beautiful animals
Making ceramics as a ceramics artist with my own beautiful studio
Supporting fundamental needs and rights to a good life (clean water, electricity, healthcare, education, etc.)
Sponsoring and spreading awareness of Korean traditional arts and artists
None of these have anything to do with the concept of paid work or having a career. In fact, none of these are things I could have even imagined wanting to do when I was in my twenties—I was too busy stressing over my so-called career. These specific dreams aren’t necessarily important but the ability to dream of a specific future is something special. Most people go through life doing the same thing for fifty years, maybe retiring if they can afford to, sitting in front of a TV for a decade or two—before passing away. These people don’t dream. They think their life has to and will look the same. They can’t imagine that there could be more out there for them.
If you’re a rat in the rat race, that’s fine. There are many reasons why you might need to be. You need money to live, to take care of your family, to actually live out your dreams. But I encourage you to think about how long you’re willing to be a rat for. Rats don’t dream, so if you can start dreaming, then you stop being a rat—even if you look like one until you can actualize your dreams.
On the other end, if you don’t consider yourself a rat but only have a goal of reaching FIRE without dreaming about your specific life when you retire, then you’re still rat who’s only running away from your current situation. Dreaming is about having something to run towards. It’s about building an incredible life that you were meant for versus abandoning a life that you dislike—these are two very different things. In a world where we can choose to be anything, let’s choose be anything other than a rat. Come along with me and dream a little.