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Holy shit is this real life?!

Steeltip

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So here's the story.

I'm standing in Starbucks this morning to get some anti-depression juice before I go to my day-long slog through the rat race. I'm bitching to myself about how I don't want to do this anymore and am thinking about the Fastlane business I am working on in my off-hours. I readjust my belt as my pants aren't fitting properly because of the inflammation from the fast food I convinced myself to buy the night before as a deal for $1000 didn't go through at work, and I also generally just feel like shit. The body I had when I was fit and healthy with no job is gone and I lament this fact for a minute or two. There seems to be no break from the drudgery of work, sleep, eat, shit, repeat. With off days just being prep days for the workdays that follow and vacation days being the only form of respite, though they are only temporary shots of morphine to numb the dull ache of my mundane-beat-my-head-against-the-wall life.

But then in a moment of clarity, I look around me. I see people, most of them also overweight and most much more unhealthy than I am, also getting some sugary caffeinated concoction to get them through their own rat races. I try to put myself in the shoes of every person I see and try to imagine the life that they live. In my head, it seems like these people are just like me. The same problems and the same mundane life, with office drama, what's on TV, who they are F*cking, who their spouses are secretly F*cking, and other bullshit that keeps them occupied.

Playing through what I think their lives are like I come to a conclusion about each one of them. How the F*ck can you do this and not want to kill yourself? Like seriously. I'm only 25 and the thought of having to do this for as long as I've been alive and STILL not being done with it when I'm 50 stuns me! How can people exist like this? Am only one of a few people who just isn't satisfied? does that make me ungrateful for the relative comfort that I have been giving having been born in America?

Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design? If it is the former then I and the good people on this forum only part of the few who think that this is complete and utter bullshit? If this is the case then what is the point for even existing if this is reality? If this is the latter then the statement is...I need out of this like shit like I need the air that I breathe.

I suppose the only thing I want an answer to is...Do people actually like living like this? Is this enjoyable for most people? or are we outliers for not liking the common track?

Thanks for reading ;)

Steeltip
 
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It's hard to say what other people actually enjoy. You can try to put yourself in their shoes, but you will never be in them. It doesn't matter anyway. You know how you feel about how life is for you. That's reason enough to push forward toward the life you want.
 

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So here's the story.

I'm standing in Starbucks this morning to get some anti-depression juice before I go to my day-long slog through the rat race. I'm bitching to myself about how I don't want to do this anymore and am thinking about the Fastlane business I am working on in my off-hours. I readjust my belt as my pants aren't fitting properly because of the inflammation from the fast food I convinced myself to buy the night before as a deal for $1000 didn't go through at work, and I also generally just feel like shit. The body I had when I was fit and healthy with no job is gone and I lament this fact for a minute or two. There seems to be no break from the drudgery of work, sleep, eat, shit, repeat. With off days just being prep days for the workdays that follow and vacation days being the only form of respite, though they are only temporary shots of morphine to numb the dull ache of my mundane-beat-my-head-against-the-wall life.

But then in a moment of clarity, I look around me. I see people, most of them also overweight and most much more unhealthy than I am, also getting some sugary caffeinated concoction to get them through their own rat races. I try to put myself in the shoes of every person I see and try to imagine the life that they live. In my head, it seems like these people are just like me. The same problems and the same mundane life, with office drama, what's on TV, who they are f*cking, who their spouses are secretly f*cking, and other bullshit that keeps them occupied.

Playing through what I think their lives are like I come to a conclusion about each one of them. How the f*ck can you do this and not want to kill yourself? Like seriously. I'm only 25 and the thought of having to do this for as long as I've been alive and STILL not being done with it when I'm 50 stuns me! How can people exist like this? Am only one of a few people who just isn't satisfied? does that make me ungrateful for the relative comfort that I have been giving having been born in America?

Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design? If it is the former then I and the good people on this forum only part of the few who think that this is complete and utter bullshit? If this is the case then what is the point for even existing if this is reality? If this is the latter then the statement is...I need out of this like shit like I need the air that I breathe.

I suppose the only thing I want an answer to is...Do people actually like living like this? Is this enjoyable for most people? or are we outliers for not liking the common track?

Thanks for reading ;)

Steeltip
Yes some people do enjoy everything you posted. It's an easy life of working and having fun on the weekends.
 

Steeltip

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Playing through what I think their lives are like I come to a conclusion about each one of them. How the f*ck can you do this and not want to kill yourself? Like seriously. I'm only 25 and the thought of having to do this for as long as I've been alive and STILL not being done with it when I'm 50 stuns me! How can people exist like this? Am only one of a few people who just isn't satisfied? does that make me ungrateful for the relative comfort that I have been giving having been born in America?

We are quick to judge and in a way criticize people.

As @Lex DeVille said, we don't know what is going on in people mind. We can speculate but we don't know.

What if it works for them? What if they are happy in their situation?

We tend to optimize life for "success" in the West. I would suggest to optimize for "happiness" whatever that means for you (as long as it doesn't harm others).

Take another angle. Do the same exercise with empathy and compassion.

Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design? If it is the former then I and the good people on this forum only part of the few who think that this is complete and utter bullshit? If this is the case then what is the point for even existing if this is reality? If this is the latter then the statement is...I need out of this like shit like I need the air that I breathe.

I can't answer that but I can give a perspective.

I have family members living in a various very remotes area in Africa. Have been there in years, but I used to visit and spend few months.

One of such area was so remote that you needed electricity generators. But at the same time it was very self sufficient.

Everything needed to live (foods and animals) was done there.

One word I can use to describe them: content and physically healthy. Life there has a good rhythm (no rush, No "grind" for the sake of grinding.) and very community centric.

A deep sense of belonging and togetherness.

Fun there was let's get together, laugh and play. No internet and YouTube.

I have yet to see people that content in the west. So in a way, I think the modern world added burden to us and made us get away from what truly matters.

But there are also advantages...


Would love @WJK perspective here
 

Steeltip

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We are quick to judge and in a way criticize people.

As @Lex DeVille said, we don't know what is going on in people mind. We can speculate but we don't know.

What if it works for them? What if they are happy in their situation?

We tend to optimize life for "success" in the West. I would suggest to optimize for "happiness" whatever that means for you (as long as it doesn't harm others).

Take another angle. Do the same exercise with empathy and compassion.



I can't answer that but I can give a perspective.

I have family members living in a various very remotes area in Africa. Have been there in years, but I used to visit and spend few months.

One of such area was so remote that you needed electricity generators. But at the same time it was very self sufficient.

Everything needed to live (foods and animals) was done there.

One word I can use to describe them: content and physically healthy. Life there has a good rhythm (no rush, No "grind" for the sake of grinding.) and very community centric.

A deep sense of belonging and togetherness.

Fun there was let's get together, laugh and play. No internet and YouTube.

I have yet to see people that content in the west. So in a way, I think the modern world added burden to us and made us get away from what truly matters.

But there are also advantages...


Would love @WJK perspective here
You guys are definitely right I shouldn't pass judgment on people whose lives I know nothing about.

Though what your talking about with your family in Africa is sort of what I am getting at. I would like that life much more than the grind that we have come to know. As you say though there are advantages to this life.
 

Lex DeVille

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You guys are definitely right I shouldn't pass judgment on people whose lives I know nothing about.

Though what your talking about with your family in Africa is sort of what I am getting at. I would like that life much more than the grind that we have come to know. As you say though there are advantages to this life.
I didn't say don't pass judgment. I judge people every day. It's just that the thing that's relevant for your life is what you are doing to change it. What will move you closer to your goals? Judgment isn't bad. Sometimes you need to judge people to avoid costly mistakes that might set you off your path by years or decades.
 
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Steeltip

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I didn't say don't pass judgment. I judge people every day. It's just that the thing that's relevant for your life is what you are doing to change it. What will move you closer to your goals? Judgment isn't bad. Sometimes you need to judge people to avoid costly mistakes that might set you off your path by years or decades.
I believe what you said is wise I do appreciate the feedback
 

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I've been giving this some thought lately too, especially in the historical context.

I think in an era or place where a tiger can attack your family in a hut, there's no such thing as "an off day". The more you layer on the trappings of modern life, the more leisure becomes a possibility.

But work used to be a virtue. The ability to work for the sake of working was seen as a goal or purpose to life in itself. Leisure was akin to lazy and laziness is a vice, something to be purged from our character. Don't indulge in too much leisure, else you risk being a do nothing.

Somewhere, I'm guessing, in the last century advertisers have convinced us that the "good life" means buying a car or plane ticket or tv or video game or new clothes or bigger house or pharmaceutical and the logical conclusion our minds draw is we work to be able to afford things. And then even more recently there's a backlash against this "acquire things" mindset that say the value is in experiences, aka leisure.

But what is actually true? The sun still rises and sets on work days and leisure days all the same. How is a weekend really different from a vacation day? That jumped out at me when you said it.

What if work days and leisure days where just "days" and you didn't label the things you do that day as anything more than "what do I need to accomplish today"?

I've been talking to my friends who have suggested I need some more hobbies. I work too much, allegedly. But I find value, pleasure, and some sense of self worth in the work I do. On days that I don't have my kids, given the choice between working or doing something else, I choose work 3 times out of 4.

I choose other things more out of a sense that I should go for a hike because its healthy or I'll play a game with friends because its fun, but not as fun for me as seeing rankings go up. Some days I have to remind myself to stand up and move around, and take the time to prep a healthy meal. I've even set alarms for myself, because otherwise I'm just "in the zone" and suddenly the sun has gone down.

Anyways, I feel like I'm wired the opposite of many people that way, in that I exist to "work" on my craft. I haven't always been that way, and maybe I won't always be this way, but its who I am at the moment. I have no intention of retiring, I hope to always have an office to go to. Sure, maybe I'll show up less in old age, but I still want to show up.

Sometimes artists describe this feeling, like they just have to make art. I don't think my sense of working on my craft is quite like that. This is more akin to how, as a kid, I used to zone out in books, or later I would zone out in video games. My work feeds the same pathways in my brain that those activities did, with the added benefit that I'm helping small businesses acquire more clients, which leads to more people having a job and more prosperity for more families. And not faceless families "somewhere out there", but usually this is helping families that I get to know personally.

Maybe you haven't found your craft yet. Or maybe you don't think your work has enough value. Maybe you could switch your mindset a little if you understood or had a greater appreciation how your work actually helped your team accomplished something that actually has an affect on people in the world.

That's easier said than done. I don't think I'd feel the same way about my work if I had all large corporations as clients. Anyways, I don't know if any of this really helps, but I just wanted to get these thoughts of mine out.
 
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The-J

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For some, comfort is the goal. When comfort is the goal, that is the result.

The fact is, most people don't like their jobs and the ones that do are the lucky few. In order to assuage some of the discomfort, they add comfort in other ways.

But why chase comfort? Is it because they're lazy or that they have a flawed character? I don't think so. I personally believe that it's because that's how they were raised and taught. The good life isn't one of struggle, they say, it's an easy life with all of the trappings of success.

I believe that inside every person is a desire to achieve. But it's easy to extinguish that desire. Just teach them that successful people lead easy lives and that it's the losers that work hard. Successful people work smart and thus don't have to work hard, whereas if you're a loser, you're stuck doing the hard work for meager pay.

My favorite is when I was told that I needed to work hard in high school and college so I could have job security. "Work hard now so you won't have to work as hard later". This does make sense, but it only makes sense when speaking of how the value of your time spent compounds over time. For most people, after they get some education, it no longer does. Instead, they're stuck competing for fewer and fewer opportunities for advancement up the corporate ladder.

Reminds me of that line in Goodfellas, where Ray Liotta's character says that "To us, those goody-good people who worked shitty jobs for bum paychecks and took the subway to work every day, worried about their bills, were dead. I mean, they were suckers. They had no balls." Yet this is what society has led us to believe: that hard work isn't worthwhile and that the life of least resistance is an office job where you work 40 hours a week, get enough pay to purchase a home, and work as little as you have to in order to avoid getting fired.

Then people realize that, wait a minute, this life is a struggle too! Where did they go wrong? Maybe, just maybe, they were hoodwinked! Maybe they were lied to by the people in power because big corporations benefit from an underclass of worker bees who are convinced that they're doing the right thing!

In order to deal with the cognitive dissonance that this realization causes, many people think that the struggle they face is not their own fault and that they don't deserve the struggle they take on, when in reality, everyone struggles and nobody gets out of this thing alive. Or worse, they double down on their lifestyle and continue to absorb any and all comfort they can while they work jobs that don't fulfill them and leave them drained at the end of the day.

Even those who don't work hard still struggle. Their struggles just look different.

So what does that mean for those who see what's going on? What happens when you've peered behind the curtain? You now have a choice: red pill or blue pill.

The choice is yours.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Good post my friend, you should consider a job in writing. :playful:

Do people actually like living like this?

I'm guessing many don't, deep down their soul knows the truth if left to quiet -- a morning shower, a sleepless night...

But as long as there's a sports game on TV, a new HBO drama, a new video game to be conquered, there is always an readily available medication to bury their sorrows.

What if work days and leisure days where just "days" and you didn't label the things

Culture has done the labeling for you. You are to give Monday - Friday to the system.
 

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I've been giving this some thought lately too, especially in the historical context.

I think in an era or place where a tiger can attack your family in a hut, there's no such thing as "an off day". The more you layer on the trappings of modern life, the more leisure becomes a possibility.

But work used to be a virtue. The ability to work for the sake of working was seen as a goal or purpose to life in itself. Leisure was akin to lazy and laziness is a vice, something to be purged from our character. Don't indulge in too much leisure, else you risk being a do nothing.

Somewhere, I'm guessing, in the last century advertisers have convinced us that the "good life" means buying a car or plane ticket or tv or video game or new clothes or bigger house or pharmaceutical and the logical conclusion our minds draw is we work to be able to afford things. And then even more recently there's a backlash against this "acquire things" mindset that say the value is in experiences, aka leisure.

But what is actually true? The sun still rises and sets on work days and leisure days all the same. How is a weekend really different from a vacation day? That jumped out at me when you said it.

What if work days and leisure days where just "days" and you didn't label the things you do that day as anything more than "what do I need to accomplish today"?

I've been talking to my friends who have suggested I need some more hobbies. I work too much, allegedly. But I find value, pleasure, and some sense of self worth in the work I do. On days that I don't have my kids, given the choice between working or doing something else, I choose work 3 times out of 4.

I choose other things more out of a sense that I should go for a hike because its healthy or I'll play a game with friends because its fun, but not as fun for me as seeing rankings go up. Some days I have to remind myself to stand up and move around, and take the time to prep a healthy meal. I've even set alarms for myself, because otherwise I'm just "in the zone" and suddenly the sun has gone down.

Anyways, I feel like I'm wired the opposite of many people that way, in that I exist to "work" on my craft. I haven't always been that way, and maybe I won't always be this way, but its who I am at the moment. I have no intention of retiring, I hope to always have an office to go to. Sure, maybe I'll show up less in old age, but I still want to show up.

Sometimes artists describe this feeling, like they just have to make art. I don't think my sense of working on my craft is quite like that. This is more akin to how, as a kid, I used to zone out in books, or later I would zone out in video games. My work feeds the same pathways in my brain that those activities did, with the added benefit that I'm helping small businesses acquire more clients, which leads to more people having a job and more prosperity for more families. And not faceless families "somewhere out there", but usually this is helping families that I get to know personally.

Maybe you haven't found your craft yet. Or maybe you don't think your work has enough value. Maybe you could switch your mindset a little if you understood or had a greater appreciation how your work actually helped your team accomplished something that actually has an affect on people in the world.

That's easier said than done. I don't think I'd feel the same way about my work if I had all large corporations as clients. Anyways, I don't know if any of this really helps, but I just wanted to get these thoughts of mine out.
It's a blessing to be skilled in a craft. No amount of money in the bank will stop me from pursuing the crafts I love.

But unfortunately many people are more like peasants: they don't have a craft, they have drudgery and intermittent distraction.
 

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I'm guessing many don't, deep down their soul knows the truth if left to quiet -- a morning shower, a sleepless night...

But as long as there's a sports game on TV, a new HBO drama, a new video game to be conquered, there is always an readily available medication to bury their sorrows.


A random part of TMF that stuck with me is when you said you prefer having the fastest car in real life rather than a video game. Or something like that.

I have used a variation of that couple of time with people
 
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We are living in H. E. Double Hockey Sticks.
 

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I'm of the opinion that happiness is a state of mind. If you can't find a way to be content in your current situation, what makes you think this will change when you have more. There will just be more things and complications to be unhappy about.

Of course there are circumstances that make life a hell hole. This can be seen in multiple places in my family alone.

My mother was an extreme paranoid schizophrenic and manic depressive. She resented the world because she could not participate like other "normal" people. Spent many years in institutions and such.

Two of my granddaughters have such a rare genetic disorder that they don't even have a name for it. Their bodies don't process proteins and thus have little muscle. They are basically in wheelchairs. They can walk on wobbly legs but fall all the time. Never able to participate in sports or play like others. No cure at this time. They had a lab at a hospital with a staff dedicated solely to finding a cure for them. It was shut down after 5 years with no result.

My nephew came down with spinal meningitis when he was three. He is paralyzed on one side and had the mental capacity of a 5 year old. He lives in a care home.

All of them deal with life the best they know how.

Your challenge really is to learn how to be happy in general. It will really help if you can grasp this before heading into the fastlane. Life becomes much more complicated with success.
 

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It's just crazy to me I suppose, I almost wish I could be like that
What is the alternative in your mind?

Because if you think being an entrepreneur gets you out of the grind, it may be partially true. I knew many people who like the 9 to 5 because they go to work and go home and collect money. Don’t think about work on the weekends at all.

If you want freedom that comes with owning a business, or making a lot of money, let me tell you, there will be a lot more pressure than going to Starbucks and going to work every day.

So as you stand in line and think that your life sucks, just be prepared for the ultimate grind when you go off on your own. Many people aren’t, which is why you see them in line at Starbucks every day.
 
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Since some comments have been made about this, I wouldn't say that the average worker is lazy. But what might be true is that lack of a higher purpose in life has been easily replaced through consumerism.

Depending on the economic system, let's say like in Germany and from the telling of the people I have worked with, I recognized something interesting. My coworkers don't even understand the purpose of money why they work for.

For most of them having a job security and paying for the monthly living costs, is the best thing imaginable. Even if they have 500€ left in their pocket, they don't know on how to act on those 500€.

Here one side joke: They best time to promote your online products is usually after 12 pm in the midday ;)

This is the time where the most work has been done and the people start to follow their "natural habits". Some of them meet in the kitchen next to the beloved coffee machine and have their conversation, others have their secret places to take a 2 hours nap, others hide at the toilet and do their own business there.

Now you are maybe laughing but what is true, is that the people at work spent their time to do some searchings on Amazon. They spend their hard earned money which could make them free out of this situation, into things, which keep them even deeper in their current situation.

The best worker is not only the one who dedicates his life to the company but also who spents his money back into the company. Ask Bezos.

If you have no bigger goals/ interests or even hobbies outside the work, you start to create a new life inside the work. Years by years they recognize that their family structures are breaking and they have no one outside the work, who they truly can call "a friend". But at the same time they take a look at the people in their working space and they find others like them. The "outside pain" facing the reality how the life should be, is thankfully numbed during the work.

The only way out, is by taking your life back after the work and most people won't, can't or even don't understand why they have to do it.

Keep your mind clear. Don't bother why those people are, who they are. Your biggest problem should be, why those people don't spend their hard earned money into your company?
 

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Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design?
Maybe I am romantic but I doubt that people back then were as miserable as most are now. It's a question of control, environment and food. Shit food causes inflammation and inflammation causes depression which perpetuates the cycle.

Also, if you were a cave man, you went to hunt your whatever it was and you kept it. If you succeeded, you got to keep the reward and if you failed, you would be hungry, but at least there was a direct connection between your actions and the consequences you faced.

Thirdly, the environments most of us live in are ugly and synthetic with fast food stores, parking lots, cheap warehouse buildings and retail outlets. All that ugliness kills the soul.

But the real difference would have been that humans have only recently (since the enlightenment) developed a concept of an autonomous, separate 'me' who must achieve and do it all alone. That's the source of all our misery.

On the other hand, I am very happy to live in an age of relative freedom, health care, and peace.
 
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So here's the story.

I'm standing in Starbucks this morning to get some anti-depression juice before I go to my day-long slog through the rat race. I'm bitching to myself about how I don't want to do this anymore and am thinking about the Fastlane business I am working on in my off-hours. I readjust my belt as my pants aren't fitting properly because of the inflammation from the fast food I convinced myself to buy the night before as a deal for $1000 didn't go through at work, and I also generally just feel like shit. The body I had when I was fit and healthy with no job is gone and I lament this fact for a minute or two. There seems to be no break from the drudgery of work, sleep, eat, shit, repeat. With off days just being prep days for the workdays that follow and vacation days being the only form of respite, though they are only temporary shots of morphine to numb the dull ache of my mundane-beat-my-head-against-the-wall life.

But then in a moment of clarity, I look around me. I see people, most of them also overweight and most much more unhealthy than I am, also getting some sugary caffeinated concoction to get them through their own rat races. I try to put myself in the shoes of every person I see and try to imagine the life that they live. In my head, it seems like these people are just like me. The same problems and the same mundane life, with office drama, what's on TV, who they are f*cking, who their spouses are secretly f*cking, and other bullshit that keeps them occupied.

Playing through what I think their lives are like I come to a conclusion about each one of them. How the f*ck can you do this and not want to kill yourself? Like seriously. I'm only 25 and the thought of having to do this for as long as I've been alive and STILL not being done with it when I'm 50 stuns me! How can people exist like this? Am only one of a few people who just isn't satisfied? does that make me ungrateful for the relative comfort that I have been giving having been born in America?

Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design? If it is the former then I and the good people on this forum only part of the few who think that this is complete and utter bullshit? If this is the case then what is the point for even existing if this is reality? If this is the latter then the statement is...I need out of this like shit like I need the air that I breathe.

I suppose the only thing I want an answer to is...Do people actually like living like this? Is this enjoyable for most people? or are we outliers for not liking the common track?

Thanks for reading ;)

Steeltip
Yes for some, they enjoy their jobs. Perhaps they are contented because of the salary and the workplace they have. Basically it's their choice to live that way.

God has given us free will to create choices on the life we have. If we choose to work on a 9-5 job and complain about it then it's our fault why our life go on that way. Our choices creates the life we have today, tomorrow, and on the future.

Some people are satisfied on what they have while others are not. Some people also complain for their life while others are grateful, happy and contented. I think, it's a matter of choice and how we perceive things on our life. Hopefully, this would help you. Godbless.
 

KenDunlop

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So here's the story.

I'm standing in Starbucks this morning to get some anti-depression juice before I go to my day-long slog through the rat race. I'm bitching to myself about how I don't want to do this anymore and am thinking about the Fastlane business I am working on in my off-hours. I readjust my belt as my pants aren't fitting properly because of the inflammation from the fast food I convinced myself to buy the night before as a deal for $1000 didn't go through at work, and I also generally just feel like shit. The body I had when I was fit and healthy with no job is gone and I lament this fact for a minute or two. There seems to be no break from the drudgery of work, sleep, eat, shit, repeat. With off days just being prep days for the workdays that follow and vacation days being the only form of respite, though they are only temporary shots of morphine to numb the dull ache of my mundane-beat-my-head-against-the-wall life.

But then in a moment of clarity, I look around me. I see people, most of them also overweight and most much more unhealthy than I am, also getting some sugary caffeinated concoction to get them through their own rat races. I try to put myself in the shoes of every person I see and try to imagine the life that they live. In my head, it seems like these people are just like me. The same problems and the same mundane life, with office drama, what's on TV, who they are f*cking, who their spouses are secretly f*cking, and other bullshit that keeps them occupied.

Playing through what I think their lives are like I come to a conclusion about each one of them. How the f*ck can you do this and not want to kill yourself? Like seriously. I'm only 25 and the thought of having to do this for as long as I've been alive and STILL not being done with it when I'm 50 stuns me! How can people exist like this? Am only one of a few people who just isn't satisfied? does that make me ungrateful for the relative comfort that I have been giving having been born in America?

Has life always been like this for people even back in prehistoric times? Did we just trade burdens from finding food and running from predators to going to the 9-6 rat race or did we just construct a gilded prison of our own design? If it is the former then I and the good people on this forum only part of the few who think that this is complete and utter bullshit? If this is the case then what is the point for even existing if this is reality? If this is the latter then the statement is...I need out of this like shit like I need the air that I breathe.

I suppose the only thing I want an answer to is...Do people actually like living like this? Is this enjoyable for most people? or are we outliers for not liking the common track?

Thanks for reading ;)

Steeltip
Hi Steeltip, I'm new to the forum but what you've written resonates with some of the things that brought me here.

I've been unemployed a lot before and I've also found that it's so much easier to go to the gym when you don't have a job! I'm well aware that I've gotten slowly fatter and less healthy over the year of having a new job (that's otherwise been pretty good for me). What's more, if you look at the engineers who've worked at the company for ten years or more, they tend to be fat, lazy-looking, red-faced and sweaty. You can see the long-term effects of having a Nice Stable Job on their bodies, and I don't want to end up like that. It's so much harder to work out when you're spending 8 hours a day sitting at a desk in an artificial working day. I can see all to clearly that I'm selling my health for a monthly saving from my paycheck.

You also mentioned 'office drama, what's on TV... and other bullshit' which reminds me of a bit observation I've made. I call it the distinction between Drama and Action. My inspiration for this was the day almost everyone in my department lost our jobs on the same day. The day before I'd been fussing with the rest of them about petty office drama, wondering if I was going to get promoted, etc. All it took was one day and all that drama was dispelled in one swift motion. The office gossip was Drama, losing my job was Action. Action tends to be swift and decisive, and only by embracing Action and learning to filter out Drama can you succeed.

As for why people put up with the Slowlane life, I think it's comfortable and feels 'safe' (familiar) in a way. Many people seem to resent the rich and think they're all phonies who exploit others. Basically, ordinary people want to be rich, but also think it's immoral to be rich! They're full of contradictions and I think it's a big part of the reason they're poor in the first place.
 

Steeltip

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I've been giving this some thought lately too, especially in the historical context.

I think in an era or place where a tiger can attack your family in a hut, there's no such thing as "an off day". The more you layer on the trappings of modern life, the more leisure becomes a possibility.

But work used to be a virtue. The ability to work for the sake of working was seen as a goal or purpose to life in itself. Leisure was akin to lazy and laziness is a vice, something to be purged from our character. Don't indulge in too much leisure, else you risk being a do nothing.

Anyways, I feel like I'm wired the opposite of many people that way, in that I exist to "work" on my craft. I haven't always been that way, and maybe I won't always be this way, but its who I am at the moment. I have no intention of retiring, I hope to always have an office to go to. Sure, maybe I'll show up less in old age, but I still want to show up.

Sometimes artists describe this feeling, like they just have to make art. I don't think my sense of working on my craft is quite like that. This is more akin to how, as a kid, I used to zone out in books, or later I would zone out in video games. My work feeds the same pathways in my brain that those activities did, with the added benefit that I'm helping small businesses acquire more clients, which leads to more people having a job and more prosperity for more families. And not faceless families "somewhere out there", but usually this is helping families that I get to know personally.

Maybe you haven't found your craft yet. Or maybe you don't think your work has enough value. Maybe you could switch your mindset a little if you understood or had a greater appreciation how your work actually helped your team accomplished something that actually has an affect on people in the world.
I work in a similar fashion when it is something I absolutely believe in. If I am in that situation then time doesn't even feel like it's going by. That sort of meaningful work is what I am wanting to get to.

I'm of the opinion that happiness is a state of mind. If you can't find a way to be content in your current situation, what makes you think this will change when you have more. There will just be more things and complications to be unhappy about.

Of course there are circumstances that make life a hell hole. This can be seen in multiple places in my family alone.

My mother was an extreme paranoid schizophrenic and manic depressive. She resented the world because she could not participate like other "normal" people. Spent many years in institutions and such.

Two of my granddaughters have such a rare genetic disorder that they don't even have a name for it. Their bodies don't process proteins and thus have little muscle. They are basically in wheelchairs. They can walk on wobbly legs but fall all the time. Never able to participate in sports or play like others. No cure at this time. They had a lab at a hospital with a staff dedicated solely to finding a cure for them. It was shut down after 5 years with no result.

My nephew came down with spinal meningitis when he was three. He is paralyzed on one side and had the mental capacity of a 5 year old. He lives in a care home.

All of them deal with life the best they know how.

Your challenge really is to learn how to be happy in general. It will really help if you can grasp this before heading into the fastlane. Life becomes much more complicated with success.
It's easy to forget that sometimes the seemingly simplest things in life we take for granted. I think I do need to do some reframing for sure.
What is the alternative in your mind?

Because if you think being an entrepreneur gets you out of the grind, it may be partially true. I knew many people who like the 9 to 5 because they go to work and go home and collect money. Don’t think about work on the weekends at all.

If you want freedom that comes with owning a business, or making a lot of money, let me tell you, there will be a lot more pressure than going to Starbucks and going to work every day.

So as you stand in line and think that your life sucks, just be prepared for the ultimate grind when you go off on your own. Many people aren’t, which is why you see them in line at Starbucks every day.
Not necessarily an escape from the grind but an escape from work that feels meaningless.
The only way out, is by taking your life back after the work and most people won't, can't or even don't understand why they have to do it.

Keep your mind clear. Don't bother why those people are, who they are. Your biggest problem should be, why those people don't spend their hard earned money into your company?
A silver bullet to those thoughts if there ever was one XD
What do you want then?

How do you want to live?
I want to take on a very heavy burden that I find meaningful
Maybe I am romantic but I doubt that people back then were as miserable as most are now. It's a question of control, environment and food. Shit food causes inflammation and inflammation causes depression which perpetuates the cycle.

Also, if you were a cave man, you went to hunt your whatever it was and you kept it. If you succeeded, you got to keep the reward and if you failed, you would be hungry, but at least there was a direct connection between your actions and the consequences you faced.

Thirdly, the environments most of us live in are ugly and synthetic with fast food stores, parking lots, cheap warehouse buildings and retail outlets. All that ugliness kills the soul.

But the real difference would have been that humans have only recently (since the enlightenment) developed a concept of an autonomous, separate 'me' who must achieve and do it all alone. That's the source of all our misery.

On the other hand, I am very happy to live in an age of relative freedom, health care, and peace.
And there's a certain meaning in that for sure, I wonder if as a society we would actually like it more if it was like that. Though I cant be sure as I have never had to live like that except for backpacking.
 
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Steeltip

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Hi Steeltip, I'm new to the forum but what you've written resonates with some of the things that brought me here.

I've been unemployed a lot before and I've also found that it's so much easier to go to the gym when you don't have a job! I'm well aware that I've gotten slowly fatter and less healthy over the year of having a new job (that's otherwise been pretty good for me). What's more, if you look at the engineers who've worked at the company for ten years or more, they tend to be fat, lazy-looking, red-faced and sweaty. You can see the long-term effects of having a Nice Stable Job on their bodies, and I don't want to end up like that. It's so much harder to work out when you're spending 8 hours a day sitting at a desk in an artificial working day. I can see all to clearly that I'm selling my health for a monthly saving from my paycheck.

You also mentioned 'office drama, what's on TV... and other bullshit' which reminds me of a bit observation I've made. I call it the distinction between Drama and Action. My inspiration for this was the day almost everyone in my department lost our jobs on the same day. The day before I'd been fussing with the rest of them about petty office drama, wondering if I was going to get promoted, etc. All it took was one day and all that drama was dispelled in one swift motion. The office gossip was Drama, losing my job was Action. Action tends to be swift and decisive, and only by embracing Action and learning to filter out Drama can you succeed.

As for why people put up with the Slowlane life, I think it's comfortable and feels 'safe' (familiar) in a way. Many people seem to resent the rich and think they're all phonies who exploit others. Basically, ordinary people want to be rich, but also think it's immoral to be rich! They're full of contradictions and I think it's a big part of the reason they're poor in the first place.
I have noticed the exact same things in any job I work and I look more and more like I am becoming that which I will do everything in my power to prevent.

That's one thing that I have found also. There is no such thing as true stability even if it looks like there is. Truly, being an entrepreneur may even carry the exact same risk. But just like @MJ DeMarco says in TMF you only have to call the coin flip once instead of betting everything on a lifetime.

Also very much agree with the last part as well.
 

KenDunlop

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I have noticed the exact same things in any job I work and I look more and more like I am becoming that which I will do everything in my power to prevent.

That's one thing that I have found also. There is no such thing as true stability even if it looks like there is. Truly, being an entrepreneur may even carry the exact same risk. But just like @MJ DeMarco says in TMF you only have to call the coin flip once instead of betting everything on a lifetime.

Also very much agree with the last part as well.
'There's no such thing as true stability', exactly. I think a lot if has to do with how much uncertainty you're willing to face. As an employee, everything seems very 'safe', with a steady wage that's the same amount each month. Meanwhile, your boss is handling the uncertainty of the market. If sales go down, they still have to give you the same wage. If sales go up, you don't get any benefit. The problem is that these things look safe... until they don't. One day your job could be taken away by forces outside your control. As an employee, you don't have to even think about that, until you do. It's a lot like a suspended childhood where your parents look after you, then school, and finally your boss. Then I guess you retire and the government looks after you instead.

On workers getting gradually less healthy, there was something else I was tempted to add. The bosses don't seem to get unhealthy in the same way that their long-term underlings do. A long-time engineer might be fat and red-faced, but I've always found that the bosses at the top (the founders of the company, normally) look much healthier. The top bosses tend to act more relaxed and more sociable. It's the underlings who are hunched over a computer, tapping away, trying to 'work hard' for a steady wage.

This is something I've tried to do for years; study the people at the top and see what they're doing differently.
 
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Steeltip

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'There's no such thing as true stability', exactly. I think a lot if has to do with how much uncertainty you're willing to face. As an employee, everything seems very 'safe', with a steady wage that's the same amount each month. Meanwhile, your boss is handling the uncertainty of the market. If sales go down, they still have to give you the same wage. If sales go up, you don't get any benefit. The problem is that these things look safe... until they don't. One day your job could be taken away by forces outside your control. As employee, you don't have to even think about that, until you do. It's a lot like a suspended childhood where your parents look after you, then school, and finally your boss. Then I guess you retire and the government looks after you instead.

On workers getting gradually less healthy, there was something else I was tempted to add. The bosses don't seem to get unhealthy in the same way that their long-term underlings do. A long-time engineer might be fat and red-faced, but I've always found that the bosses at the top (the founders of the company, normally) look much healthier. The top bosses tend to act more relaxed and more sociable. It's the underlings who are hunched over a computer, tapping away, trying to 'work hard' for a steady wage.

This is something I've tried to do for years; study the people at the top and see what they're doing differently.
I had the pleasure of being laid off on March 20th, 2020 when the pandemic hit. Everything seems stable until it's not. That morning I remember thinking in my car how it would all be over soon and I would be hitting my sales numbers again. Even being in sales now nothing is stable, one week your up, and the next week your not.

In terms of the bosses being healtheir, It might have to do with better executive control functions if I had to take a guess. The reason they were promoted or started a successful company may be the same reason that they find the time to be healthy.
 
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KenDunlop

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I had the pleasure of being laid off on March 20th, 2020 when the pandemic hit. Everything seems stable until it's not. That morning I remember thinking in my car how it would all be over soon and I would be hitting my sales numbers again. Even being in sales now nothing is stable, one week your up, and the next week your not.

In terms of the bosses being healtheir, It might have to do with better executive control functions if I had to take a guess. The reason they were promoted or started a successful company may be the same reason that they find the time to be healthy.
Funny, I know a lot of people have suffered because of the pandemic, but it's actually been really good to me! I got to be on furlough for 5 months (100% pay, no work, time to invest in my projects!) and I've been steadily saving money each month through the whole thing. Before then it was years of making no money during what most people consider the 'good times'.

This is one of the concepts one of my heroes, Caleb Jones, talks about. Even if the world in general is doing badly, you can still live in a little bubble of awesomeness yourself. You don't need to feel bound to the economy, or the average, or whatever.

You may have a point about the bosses' health. I also thought that it's that bosses get to set their own schedule more. They tend to be able to arrive at the office and leave as they please; fewer artificial rules for them. If they want to come in at 11:00am after a good workout they're more likely to be allowed.
 

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Funny, I know a lot of people have suffered because of the pandemic, but it's actually been really good to me! I got to be on furlough for 5 months (100% pay, no work, time to invest in my projects!) and I've been steadily saving money each month through the whole thing. Before then it was years of making no money during what most people consider the 'good times'.

This is one of the concepts one of my heroes, Caleb Jones, talks about. Even if the world in general is doing badly, you can still live in a little bubble of awesomeness yourself. You don't need to feel bound to the economy, or the average, or whatever.

You may have a point about the bosses' health. I also thought that it's that bosses get to set their own schedule more. They tend to be able to arrive at the office and leave as they please; fewer artificial rules for them. If they want to come in at 11:00am after a good workout they're more likely to be allowed.
Hahaha, that's awesome man!

Also your right about that, I had a one-month paid vacation during that layoff and ended up finding a job after so I would definitely consider myself lucky in that bunch.

And that might be it right there man that makes sense
 

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If you just want to do something meaningful then go do it. You are in complete control in how you want to live your life.

You can find a way to make a couple grand online each month, go live in thailand on a beach and spend the day petting monkeys and riding a motor scooter around and swim on the beach.

You can start an organization that helps millions of people.

You can do whatever you want it's just a matter of knowing what you want, and then setting out to do it. You are free to live whatever life you want. You can go live in a cabin in alaska. You can go live on a sailboat. It's all up to you man.
 
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By the way, if you want more non-Slowlane material you might like The Unchained Man by Caleb Jones. He's a hero of mine and I've read his blog for years. He describes in the book how he basically realized how hollow the Slowlane is when he was a little kid.
 
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Anon3114

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Everyone has what they tolerate in their lives.

And that's good - each of us should have the right to choose what kind of life we want for ourselves. We are not the same, and this diversity makes us complement each other as a community.

Reflecting on the meaningfulness of someone else's actions distracts you from the really important things.

Instead of being disgusted with the condition of those around you, it is worth considering what the needs of these people are.

It's easy for me to write it now, but in fact, I could just put it briefly: "don't judge."

Your conclusion that these people are not aware of their own lives may be wrong.

We cannot be the same as then we will become extinct as a species.

We need this diversity in our approach to life.

There are a lot of people complaining about their lives because now everyone is required to strive for excellence. They feel the external pressure to be perfect.

You can be thankful that you think about such important topics and find a way to make your unique sensitivity to this point useful for your community.

I in no way criticize your or anyone else's statement. Just live and let people live as they see fit. Help those who turn to you for advice because it means they want it.
 

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