The Rat Race Saga!!

Urban dictionary online defines Rat Race as a term used to describe a frustrating, hard-to-break financial lifestyle. A lifestyle lived by countless people, oblivious to the very nature of it, to a degree that even when called upon, vehemently deny it. They summarize Rat Race thus, “subjecting one's self to a time-consuming job, saddling one's self with heavy mortgages/rents, bills, children, and liabilities, forcing the individual to continue busting his or her ass at that same job”.

image courtesy of www.inboundsales.net

Can everyone become a king? In my opinion, I don’t think so, a king ought to have subjects, if everyone is a king, who will be their subjects? I ask these because I was thinking about the concept of “getting out of the rat race”. Is it easy to get out of the rat race? Imagine a person with enough worries to weigh him/her down forever, would that person have time to think of getting out of the rat race? Now am wondering, if everyone gets out of the rat race, what is going to happen to organizations? Richard Martin (2011), on his blog states that organizations are made up of people and nothing else. He says it’s about people, the processes and structure of interactions they use, the competence and influence of formal and informal leaders, working together toward common objectives. He goes further to say “There is really only one dimension of organization, and it is the human dimension”.

Now am worried, what’s going to happen to organizations if everyone is out of the rat race? The world needs people with all types of skills to survive. To me, “the world we live in is an organization, where individuals exists in associations with one other, the world is a network of organizations”. The truth simply is we can’t all become Kings? But we can be Kings in our own private lives. I was at a seminar once where a speaker said, he is working for money, he said he’s always surprised when people say they are working for the experience, he wonders what experience they are looking for. That makes one ask why people work. Does working in a company that isn’t yours make you or your life irrelevant?

The speaker says people are contented with being in the rat race. He calls it living an official life. Official car, bags, shoes, office, food, clothes, etcetera. Do you like looking official? Is there something wrong with looking official? Am just curious here. The issue of contentment and job satisfaction takes me back to the question: why do people get degrees? Why do people have specializations? Let me ask you, what is your current career status? Are you satisfied or you want to go higher?

It is often said that no company will pay you your worth, I am inclined to agree. I mean, look at Nigerian banks for example, they employ a marketer to get accounts opened for 32 individuals monthly, with N2million as the least deposited amount from each individual, and that marketer is placed on a N30,000 salary plus incentives? Do the math, does it make sense? Okay, let us even imagine you are earning N10million, and your company’s turnover for each year is N1billion. Are you being paid your worth? No wonder everyone wants out of the rat race. A friend suggests that the only way you can get paid what you deserve, is to be made a shareholder in the company.

Success is not defined by being a billionaire or driving flashy cars, if you are planning to get out of the rat race, be wise and pray to God for guidance, be wary of what you plan to invest in, just look at how the stock market crashed and people lost so much money, few saw it coming. Nevertheless, it is okay to take risks and fail, like Aaliyah said, in one of her songs, 

“If at first you don't succeed
Dust yourself off and try again
You can dust it off and try again”. 

Just make sure you take risks that you can live with should it fail, not the ones that will lead to you developing high blood pressure. Although some will argue that one should take huge risks, I think calculated and manageable risks sounds better. Man basically has NEEDS and as his status increases, so does his WANTS. #DecideWisely

References

Rat Race defined by the Urban Dictionary online. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rat+race

Richard M. (2011), on exploiting change in a turbulent world. http://exploitingchange.com/2011/06/02/organizations-are-made-up-of-people/ retrieved April 11, 2015 at 8.15pm