How Do You Get Out of This Rat Race?

Vaibhav was looking quite anxious when he approached me. “Sir, do you know any good coach for brain development?” he asked with a bit of seriousness. “For brain development?” I continued “For whom?” Without losing any time, he said “for my son.”

“Why, what is his problem?” I asked. “There is no problem, sir. I just got him admitted in one of the best schools here. I am concerned about his performance with his competitors in the class. He should be able outperform others you know. So, I wanted to put him in some brain development course. It will be a worthwhile investment I make for him.”

“How old is he?” I asked with concern. “Well. He is just six. I just got him admitted in class one.”

Before he could complete Shalini, his wife intervened “I am already preparing him for the Super Singer program. I am also searching for a good coach for him.”

I stood dumbfounded. “What to do sir? We are in a world of ‘Rat Race?’

Siddharth was concerned about admitting his son in Kota or Meerut or elsewhere. He wants to prepare his son in class eight for the Joint Entrance Examinations. “It is indeed a tough battle. A ‘Rat-race’ indeed.’

Alok hasn’t slept well for nearly a month. “I need to crack.”  He was chasing everything possible to crack his CAT exam.

May be, you don’t know about Shyam, the marketing manager, who was swallowing some pills to keep his cool. “It is March sir. It is the closing time for our sales. I need to make the numbers; otherwise, I won’t get my next elevation. There is a rat race in my organization.”

Right from admission in schools to buying your goods on a ‘Black Friday’ even after you have moved to the wrong side of forties in your life, we seem to have succumbed to the ‘Rat Race.’

Rat-race. Rat-race…. Everywhere. Too many rats have walked into the human life. Where will we hire a pied pier to lead these rats out of the human life?

“The rat race can be viewed as a quest for happiness that is ultimately unattainable, as the pursuit of material possessions and external validation does not lead to lasting contentment” says ‘the psychology of rat race.’ It is often driven by social forces for social conformity. It tends to rob the self-dependence and self-assurance of the people to validate their credibility and authenticity.

“A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement” says Jimmy Reid, the social activist. “The stereotypical rat racer is the person who never achieves anything meaningful and just keeps on repeating a set number of things that keeps them barely alive” claims Tony Steven Sheldon in his article “Why is everyone in a rat race?”

Rat race is more psychological than a fact. It is an imported conceptual conditioning in which we tend to lead a free life to a goal through the pathways of anxiety, fear, insecurity, and impatience. Rat races are not natural, but born out of a competitive, consumerist programming of life, based on the possible gloom painted for the future. At the end of the rat race, even a winner is a loser.

“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat” says Lily Tomlin, the American actor.

Are we consciously following into this trap or do we get there by an invitation? If you closely watch, several trained market forces are skilfully engaged in ushering a rat-race whether you want it or not. “Creating a need in the market’ is an essential focus of the current consumerist society whether or not you need the same.

We fall into the trap both consciously and unconsciously. Oftentimes, we feel our self-worth is lowered by the mythical benchmarks created by systems which have a commitment to market their processes or products. We defeat the self by following the pathways projected, thinking what someone follows is the same path for us too. We fail to understand that neither in education nor in skill delivery systems ‘One size doesn’t fit all.” is valid. While ‘imitation’ is considered as a secondary and inferior approach to personal development, ‘imposition’ of models over any human development is still more abusive.

The stress and tension associated with the ‘rat-race’ is a feeder to its own furtherance. Yes, stress leads to more stress and builds it up. Tension creates an inadequacy of everything around. “I don’t know where I will get this;” ‘I do not know where I will get time”’ ‘I don’t know how soon I will complete this”’; “I don’t know who I would approach now.” Tensions tend to create too many “I don’t know” around us and create san atmosphere poverty in our mind.

“Is the rat-race unavoidable in the current social set up?” asked Atul. “Atul, just find out who gave you this?” replied Madhav.

Atul blinked. “Honestly, no one gave us this. We choose to be on a rat race, because someone else is doing something, which we have a desire to do or not, whether we have the resources or not, whether we have the right type of skills are not. It just shows that we don’t understand who we are and where we need to go.” Madhav reacted.

In a world where there is an increasing conflict between “Being” and “Becoming,” the rat race appears to deprive the ‘uniqueness’ of an individual and lead them to a ‘normalized pattern’ of living which could be more accommodative, comfortable, and convenient to others. Rather it challenges ‘celebrating the individuality’ so that someone else could exercise control over others. “To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” Says Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk.

Reflecting on one’s own strength, talents and competencies and believing in the power of the self and the power of now, shielding the self from the imposters and myths of gloom or a lifeless future are important to stay out of the rat race. Those who stay out of the rat race may initially feel a sense of loneliness, a sense of non-belongingness, but tend to seek peace in the longer run. They have better sense and access to mental health as against others.