Everyone Bashes ‘The Rat Race’. I’ve Deconstructed Why It Inspires Resentment.

Have you ratted?

Virtually everyone I know bashes The Rat Race.

Of course. No one likes to be regarded as a rat. Or be one.

And no gal or pal wants to be caught in a race that has no intrinsic meaning to their lives.

It is the same for me.

And I have pondered on this topic a lot recently.

I enjoy what I do at work and during after-hours. I occasionally busk in petty victories when I stand atop the sales commission podium in select calendar quarters.

Is this what The Rat Race is about?

Things Come to You When You Think About It

Life is interesting.

We can be oblivious to things in front of us. Or have never appeared before us. But once we start obsessing about topics of interest, clues bubble to the surface.

Recently, I have been bitten by the Planetary Science bug. Or Astrophysics.

It blows my uninformed mind that,

• Jupiter has a diameter 11 times wider than Earth’s (how big is that? I have no idea.).
• Uranus has an atmosphere containing ammonia and methane (must be smelly!).
• Black Holes can gobble up all space, matter, light, and gravity (say what!?).

The natural world never failed to make me feel ignorant.

So does the human world.

An article titled Is Science Too Big for Scientists? fell on my lap as I engage in Planetary Porn. In it, one paragraph hit me hard here (pointing to my heart).

“There is a growing conviction among many of my friends in academic circles that the university today is no place for a scholar in science. A professor’s life nowadays is a rat race of busyness and activity, managing contracts and projects, guiding teams of assistants, bossing crews of technicians, making numerous trips, sitting on committees for government agencies, and engaging in other distractions necessary to keep the whole frenetic business from collapse.”

I read it, re-read it, chewed on it, slept on it, and continuously thought about it.

I believe this phenomenon extends beyond the 4 walls of academia. No, I take it back. It does.

My observations of the world around me tell me this.

The Rat Race extends beyond the 4 walls of academia.

It pops in and out of existence… everywhere I go.

The Rat Race — What It Looks Like

It is hard to pin it down.

There are no material descriptions I can draw on.

There is no real rat (it is figurative), real race (all in our minds), or a real the (nothing definitive).

These three words relate to nothing tangible. It is an emotion. Feeling. Psychological phenomenon. A sense of dread in an invisible form.

In it, The Rat Race can be logically deconstructed into 4 components.

• The rat,
• The race,
• What is the rat is trying to achieve,
• And why it is futile for the rat to achieve what it wants to.

The underlying theme of my thoughts comes from a long word f word.

Futility.

Let me start with the rat.

It baffles me why humans are related to rats in this psychological phenomenon. I don’t have an answer. This is my guess.

It has to do with mental conditioning, cheese, and mazes.

Lab rats are conditioned to run into and out of the maze fast. Why? Because there is a reward at the exit. A blob of cheese.

Repeat that maze exploration exercise 10 times, and the rat gets it.

It will sprint to that blob of cheese each time it sees the maze entrance.

From the top, we observe how the rat would go back and forth, left and right, sprint and preen, as it races to its incentive.

The exit is not always near the entrance. Some mazes are complex. Others are easy. A few are there to replace the hamster wheel for rodent exercise.

The Wild Variable Is The Journey. Do You Appreciate It?

And here presents an uncanny resemblance to the corporate world.

We go the extra mile and run as fast as we can for a blob of cheese.

In the process, we get tired from an unnecessary war of nerves and attribution, bulldoze others, get bulldozed, and flex our muscles for a +$300 monthly pay increment.

There is nothing wrong with this. That is… if that is your goal.

Rising through the ranks, accumulating administrative and executive powers, and realizing your ambitions in the corporate setting.

You may find the current blob of cheese too small for your effort. No matter. The bigger one is waiting for you in the next maze. The next deal. The next promotion.

But.

If all of these do not matter an iota to you…

You are in serious trouble.

Futility will find you, smack you hard, and make you bleed.

And then, you fall into the endless rabbit hole (introducing a new animal here, apologies) of self-doubt.

• “Why am I doing this?”
• “There is no meaning in my existence and contribution.”
• “They don’t appreciate me. My pay increment is less than $500.”

Sounds familiar? Yeah, it should.

Want to know what will happen next?

Easy.

This is my experience.

Stage 1.

Futility knocks on your door.

Stage 2.

Self-doubts bubble into existence and chew on your positivity.

Stage 3.

You resign to a lack of optionality, begrudgingly accept the situation, and become resentful.

The way to get out of The Rat Race (in my opinion) is to accept the circumstances we are in. We must also carefully study the cards we are dealt with.

At Stage 3, you must,

• Get active during after-hours,
• Try as many different side hustles as possible (go for exposure),
• And find those activities that inspire and motivate you to do a great job,
• Prove to yourself that you can earn beyond your day job,
• Find ways to do better to earn more income,
• Escape the maze you are in,
• Drop the rat costume.

We have choices in life.

And it comes from exposure.

Do more things.

It helps.

The Close

It is easy to be caught in a psychological phenomenon.

This is especially so when everyone around us spreads such vibes.

• Yes, The Rat Race is real.
• Yes, The Rat Race is invisible.
• Yes, The Rat Race makes us mentally washed out.

And we can always do something about it.

Because we own our lives.

No one else cares about us better than we do.

And so, this is the next million-dollar question.

Does that blob of cheese, this maze you are in, and the speed at which you are running… interest you?

Only you have the answer.

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