What It Really Means to Leave the Rat Race
It’s not black and white.
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This article is a thought piece. All opinions expressed are the author’s own.
We’ve all dreamed of it: the day we can finally quit our job(s), kick up our feet, and travel wherever and whenever we want. In the age of global tourism and the influx of digital nomads, you don’t even need to be 50+ to retire anymore. You can leave the rat race as early as in your 20’s — earlier, if you really strike gold. (Note: In this article, I use “rat race” to refer to anything that binds you to a paycheque, essentially.)
While I completely approve of taking control of your life and living your heart’s desire, I’ve also learned from experience that leaving the rat race isn’t all magic and sparkles, especially if you’ve been a part of the turnwheel for so long.
Taking yourself out of the equation comes with it a multitude of feelings. I felt extremely liberated and adventurous when I finally took the leap to solo travelling at age 25, quitting all my permanent jobs for it, and then I realized…
I was lonely.
I had nothing to hold on to anymore.
Solo travelling taught me so much, but probably the biggest lesson was that of community. You don’t realize how important connections are until you sever them, whether those connections are with people, with yourself, or with a passion.
And that’s what I did. I severed my employment and temporarily severed my connections with friends. I thought I was free and then realized complete freedom comes with a price.
My first solo stop in Berlin was difficult. I was overwhelmed with loneliness and a loss of emotional direction. I found the city itself to also be quite lonely in its structure. Every day, I woke up at a random time. I watched other people go to work, take lunch, talk business. I watched as they all passed by me, running the hamster wheel of work and stability, no matter how corrupt or mundane. A race I was no longer a part of.
Freelancers encounter a similar conundrum. Though they’re still bound to work through contracts and gigs, they don’t follow the majority stream of life of the 9-5-er’s. There are connections with colleagues, for sure, but they are often temporary and short-lived. In the gaps between jobs, they can also feel at a loss.
Seeing everyone with a routine destination and purpose left me feeling … on the outside. I was a visitor; I couldn’t partake in their world like they did. Aspiring to freedom gives us something to work toward; complete freedom is a chasm. Suddenly you don’t know what to do with yourself.
This is why so many new retirees fall into depression, particularly those in their golden years. They’ve spent a lifetime slaving away at work, hoping for the promise of more time and money, and when they finally get it, their life falls out of balance. No schedule to follow, no responsibilities.
Let me say that again.
No responsibilities.
Responsibility can be overwhelming, but it also tethers you to community. We make a lot of our daily connections through responsibilities. When we lose responsibility, we may also lose connection.
A lot of it has to do with ingrained capitalism. For some people, work becomes their life purpose. And when you factor passion into that, it becomes even more complicated.
My psychotherapist once said something that changed my outlook forever. I was going through a very tough time of what to do with my dance career after surgery. She said it’s a very capitalist idea that your passion must be your career, and that your personal success rides on that. A healthier way of looking at it is that a job is just something you do to fuel your passion.
Instead of asking people what they do, I said, perhaps we should be asking them what they like to do.
There is truth to the phrase, “follow your passion.” I believe passion is the answer to that deep chasm when you lose sight of your direction.
Take Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of Studio Ghibli, for example. On Miyazaki’s official retirement day, his coworkers threw him a party. Celebrations, gifts, the whole package. The next day, he came at his usual time into the office to sketch in the corner. His coworkers didn’t know what to make of it.
Miyazaki knew. He understood the importance of never letting your passion go, even after official retirement. His work and his passion co-existed, yes, but on a corporate level they were always separate entities. One did not stop the other. Keeping the love alive within himself was his secret to lifelong fulfillment.
It’s only human to question life’s purpose. Here, I’ll offer a quote by my acting teacher: “There is no purpose to life. The purpose of life is to live.” And through living, perhaps we’ve reached the highest purpose of all.
So what is living? I believe living is following your passions: the things that make your heart pump, your eyes sparkle, your soul sing. For me, that is harnessing my heart’s desires to create art. Externally, it means dancing and travelling and reading and writing.
When you aspire toward living, leaving the rat race doesn’t have to be lonely or confusing. There will still be moments of doubt and listlessness, for sure, but your passions will guide you out of them.
In Berlin, I got to a point where I purposely tried to seek out familiarity. I went to Asian-fusion diner after diner, only to be greeted in eloquent German by all the staff. I finally found a Japanese convenience store to see if they had my usual cosmetic products, and, while they didn’t, I lingered just to hear a familiar accent. I think I might’ve felt better if I’d taken a local dance class, but my pre-planned workshop got cancelled.
When I go again, I’d like to use my inner comforts (like my love of dance) to create a new experience. Life is a series of experiments, and leaving the rat race doesn’t have to stop that.
If you’re lucky enough to have a job that brings you around the world already, I think holding firmly onto your values and passions are equally important. Your inner landscape is what grounds you in an everchanging material world. Remember, your job does not define you.
Now, there are some unicorns out there like Japan’s hikikomori who live perfectly fine lives by themselves, never stepping a foot outside their door. They may still engage in the rat race from home, but they’ve left society at large otherwise. A feeling of being “on the outside” doesn’t apply to everyone when they shirk the corporate laws, and that’s fine. Then again, there are also hikikomori found to exhibit complex social anxiety, so it runs both ways.
Whenever you choose to leave the rat race (or if you ever enter it in the first place), I invite you to do so with the idea that life is for living, detached from your job or title. How you choose to live is up to you.
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