 Throughout our lives, many of us are told that we will be happy if we go to college, get a job, get married, have children and work from 9 to 5 for 40 years until we retire. Leaving your life just for the weekend or leaving your life on the weekend because the other 5 days belong to your boss. Your salary is the bribe they give you to forget your dreams. This is not happiness, but modern slavery. The rat race is an endless, self-defeating or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of the futile efforts of a lab rat trying to escape whilst running around a maze or in a wheel. In an analogy to the modern city, many rats in a single maze run around making lots of noise bumping into each other but ultimately achieve nothing meaningful either collectively or individually. Bukowski once said... Life is not a list of checkboxes that we have to tick off sequentially one after another. Got a degree? Tick. Booked a house under my name? Tick. Got married? Tick. Had children? Tick. All these sounds too cliched, too depressing. These are acts which people do under the influence of peer pressure mimicking each other and not willingly as a genuine choice of their own. As Jimmy Reed said... A rat race is for rats. We are not rats, we are 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 jeopardize your chances of promotions and self-advancement. This is how it starts and before you know where you are, you are fully paid up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. People who are stuck in a rat race are very unhappy in their job and are living in the past. They have given up hope of things getting better and lack purpose in their life. They have low energy and feel powerless to effect change. Ultimately, they have become negative in relationships and their future looks grim. If you are tired of the daily routines and feel yourself steadily losing interest in them, then something has to change. Being a human is hard, but it does not have to be this hard, so start asking yourself important questions. What are the things you deeply value? What inspires you to work hard and achieve your goals in life? What can you offer to humanity and how you can help people? Are you turning your ideas into reality? Are you living the life you want for yourself? Life is too short and it is up to you to make the most of it. You cannot buy time, so don't waste it and start living the life you want now.