Having spent a few days away from it all and having enjoyed some space, I return to the hum-drum of life with a fresh perspective. I think of a recent conversation with a colleague who is excellent at what he does, works much too hard (by my standards anyway, and I am not lazy J) and earns a lot of money. On sharing that I would like to spend my time doing something more meaningful with my time, he said that he has wanted to write a book for a long time but has to work for another few years before he can change.

Maintaining a certain life style, providing for the kids, terribly high taxation leaving little in hand, high interest rates on debts, crazy property prices, not enough jobs in the market, too much red tape before one can set up one’s own business, fear of being ‘left behind’, so on and so forth…

What is it that makes us think that we ‘have to’ do certain things? What are our compulsions? Are they real or imagined? Are they conscious or sub-conscious? Is there really nothing we can do to ‘restructure’ our priorities and our lives – fire some old dead wood of habits and employ some new creative work force?

A learned man once said that every ‘practical’ decision we make is designed to fulfill an ‘emotional’ need. On close scrutiny, I can think of many examples of that in my own story – spending extra time at work seemingly because I need to but really because being at home was sometimes harder; moving cities and countries seemingly for career progression but really because of deep discontent giving rise to a need for change.

What would it take for us to free ourselves?

All that I must do, I’ve already done.
Let everything else be what I want to do.

(PS: The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat. – Lily Tomlin)