Break Free from the Rat Race: How to Escape the Chains of Consumerism and Achieve Financial Independence

I read Plato's Cave myth as a teenager, and although I didn't know it at the time, it changed my outlook on life forever. I highly recommend that anyone who hasn't read it do so. Imagine a cave with prisoners chained to a wall for their entire lives. They are unable to move or turn their heads. They entertain themselves by watching shadows on the wall in front of them. These shadows are created by puppeteers standing in front of a fire just behind the wall where the prisoners are tied. The puppeteers mistake these shadows for reality and the chains become part of their living environment. But one day, one of the prisoners is freed. He is temporarily blinded by the fire and does not understand the connection between the puppets and the shadows on the wall. Later, he even leaves the cave and is blinded by the sun. It takes him some time to understand the reality of the world and he ends up feeling sorry for the prisoners still chained in the cave.

I was once chained to these walls, in a vicious cycle of working, earning, spending, and consuming. I thought that was the only way to live, because that’s what everyone else was doing. The shadows cast on the walls—new car ads, pictures of expensive vacations—showed me the way, and I had no reason to doubt that it was wrong. Everyone around me was also chained to these walls, staring at the same shadows, working to earn money and then spending it. These chains of debt and wasteful consumption are extremely difficult to break.

I was freed from these chains in mid-2010. I started looking for another way to live and I came across Your Money or Your Life, a book that talks about your life in terms of time and energy, not money. When you work for a salary, you trade units of life energy for money. This life energy is of course limited in time. How much of that limited time is equivalent to the mortgage on a big house, a new car, a new wardrobe? How many of those chains do you want to put on your wrists? I decided I wanted no chains at all, and I walked out of the cave. I was blind at first, but my eyes have adjusted now.

My time here on Earth is limited and every minute that passes is one less unit of life energy that I have left. I do not want to waste 50% or more of that available time in an office trying to climb a corporate ladder that leads nowhere. If you pay attention to the shadows (advertising for consumption), instead of the puppeteers (product marketing companies), you will never be able to escape these chains. I am not saying never spend money, just think about your consumption. Having a 5 bedroom house when you have no children, three cars when there are only two people using them, or keeping your thermostat on high in the winter are all lifestyles that could, and should, be changed.

Now that I am no longer tied to these chains, I am conscious of all my expenses. I have reduced phone and internet charges, I have sold my car and take the bus, I rent a cheap apartment that is on the bus line that takes me to work. I invest my savings in companies that make products that people use every day. Think drinks, food, gasoline, medicine, toothpaste, etc. Even frugal people still need to brush their teeth! These companies reward investors with regular distributions, in the form of dividends, and with these distributions I hope one day to be able to pay 100% of my expenses.

What do you think? Are you bound by your own chains? Have you come out of the cave?