Stepping Out of the Rat Race

The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 47 Degrees – 6:40 a.m.

I tend to spend a fair amount of time thinking about things. I figure that I spent so many years NOT thinking that it’s OK to over do it for a while (maybe forever!) in an attempt to “catch-up.” Ha!

So I was thinking about work…

What’s the reason the eight hour (or more!) workday even exists? And what does that reason have to do with you and what you want?

From my perspective, it seems all of these things (including the elusive beast we are supposed to call the “weekend”) are arbitrary structures created by someone other than you to achieve objectives OTHER than your own.

Slavery was never abolished, it just got repackaged.

So what happens if you ignore all of these arbitrary structures?

What happens if you sit down with yourself and start figuring out how your life should look so that you can get to the END OF IT and say, “this was good.”

One day, I realized that looking at my kids and saying, “I have a busy day today so I can’t do X today” was no longer something I should say as an individual striving to be intelligent.

All of a sudden that excuse seemed really silly. As if there was this big evil being FORCING me to do any of the things on my calendar. Sure, those are commitments, but guess who made them? And if I made them, I can change that in the future.

Why did I fall for the story that in order to create the life I want I have to be busy? What a dumb idea.

What happens if you hit Monday morning and decide to spend the morning taking a walk?

Crazy talk.

So here’s the warning before we go further:

When you begin to shift your thinking like this, the world will think you’re nuts. Some parts of the world will tell you directly, others will say it politely and still others will ignore you hoping you just go away.

  • “You have to eat…”
  • “Everyone has to work…”
  • “It’s just the way it is…”

These are all the words of people who either have NO IDEA what they want or are too scared to LIVE IT.

The fact is, most of us just assumed one of the story tracks we’ve seen others live. Is that really good enough for you?

The solution begins with nothing more than your INTENTION to create the life you want rather than the intention to adjust to the path the system hands to you.