The Rat Race

The Rat Race, as its name suggests, refers to the race of laboratory mice in mazes in search of cheese. It is also similar to that of hamsters in the wheels that turn within their cage. Many have used this image to apply it to the world of work, the lab rats being simply replaced by employees undergoing boring and/or stressful work. The concept can even be more widely applied to our Western way of life, praising the race for consumption.

The causes of this frantic and useless race are to be sought first and foremost in the system of capitalism itself. To create wealth, one must produce and above all sell. To sell, one must create a need, even if it has no legitimacy. To fill this created need, one must have wealth, therefore produce by working, but also provide access to credit when available liquidity is insufficient.

In short, today's man works for other people, to satisfy futile and provoked needs. He also works to repay the debts he has accumulated to meet these needs. It is a form of slavery whose driving force is no longer constraint, but manipulation, via marketing techniques.

The freedom offered by our societies is certainly very real, but ultimately it also creates a constraint, that of having to take full advantage of it, and therefore distinguish oneself by consuming outward signs of wealth. Few people will tell you that their greatest freedom is to do nothing.

However, working to consume does not make you happier. happiness curve shows us that the generations that are furthest removed from the world of work are those who feel the most fulfilled.

One way to escape this frantic race is to free ourselves from these superficial needs. This seems simple to say, but it is much more difficult to apply. The weight of brands and the group effect have a major influence on our behavior.

We have known the landline, the mobile phone, smartphones... We exchange them at a rate that is more linked to fashion effects than to real technological developments. Similarly, we almost always use the same features on our computer, yet we need programs, operating systems and computers that are ever more powerful, which must be changed regularly. However, all these developments have not had a major positive impact on our quality of life, quite the contrary.

The mobile phone and e-mail were supposed to be tools that would bring freedom to those who use them. Today, with the ever-narrowing boundary between private and professional life, we realize that the opposite has happened.

I remember talking, when I had just finished my studies, with an acquaintance who was older than me and who earned extremely well. I wrongly thought that he put a lot of money aside. He explained to me that although life had been generous to him, his expenses had followed the same trend and that therefore what came in on one side almost instantly came out on the other. Was it because his income was high that his lifestyle was adapted accordingly or was it because he was generous that life rewarded him in its own way? Probably a bit of both. Still, at the end of the month he had no more left in his pockets than in those of a young employee who had just graduated.

We should therefore be able to stay outside of these needs created by our consumer society. Get out of the system in some way. Live simply, by satisfying our own physiological, psychological and spiritual needs, not those created by others. To do this, there is no need to live beyond one's means, at 100 miles an hour, to consume excessively, to get into debt up to one's neck and to work like a maniac.

We are afraid to get out of this rat race, because that is how our life is today. But all we risk is being happier.