Thoughts on the Rat Race (4/13)

There happiness curve shows us how human beings have relatively little control over their destiny. It is the passage of time that mainly influences our well-being. All young and barely landed in our laboratory rat cage, we are still lulled by illusion and see life through rose-tinted glasses. The entire consumer society is offered to us at the same time as we gain purchasing power. It's a total blast.

It's so good that it becomes addictive. Since we always want more, we agree to do a few extra hours here and there. A promotion comes along, bam, we jump on it. The rat is trapped in its golden cage.

Gently, but very surely, responsibilities are being pinned on him. He is completely unaware of this because it is being done in a very insidious and long-term manner. A bit like a frog which is put in lukewarm water and gradually simmered.

The initial pleasures gradually disappear in favor of professional obligations. We earn money, but we have less and less time to spend it. Worse, we need it more and more to pay for goods or services that do not make us happier. We even spend an increasingly large part of our income just to continue to earn income and keep ourselves in this frantic race of laboratory rats.

We start by increasing the dosage first to continue to experience the initial effect, then, with time, we no longer even seek euphoria, but just to not feel bad. Does that remind you of anything? We, poor laboratory rats, have become dependent on consumer society and its corollary, work.

Alongside the professional ladder we climb, we also progress on the private and family side: car, housing, spouse, children, etc. Although some of these elements of our "adult" life bring personal fulfillment, all of them involve new responsibilities and make us even more dependent on consumer society.

The Rat Race thus reaches its peak in the prime of life, when we have reached a "good situation" both privately and professionally. At forty, our income is high, we have already accumulated a certain amount of capital, we often have one or more nice cars, a good home, a spouse, children for whom we are responsible and whom we must manage during the little time we have left and very often we also start to have to worry about our parents and in-laws who, on the contrary, are becoming less and less autonomous and responsible.

The forties are the sandwich generation, caught between the young and the old, having to shoulder the burden of the responsibilities of the next generation and the one before. Money, duties, but very little time for oneself, that's what characterizes this age group.