how do you quit the rat race ?

Step three should occur when you think you're about six months from being ready.

. Drop off the race by selling your stuff and moving in a third world country.

. Excel at the race until you win: you'll get financially emancipated and maybe you'll have a word to say if you want to perpetuate or change it's rules.

.Get vitrificated and come back when the time will be more interesting for you.

or a deconstructivist

http://while1.net/~xm/misc/splinter.gif

There are still some good old fashioned gentlemen of the street out there. We have a regular down our bar (who we tell unaware first years is the head of the college.)

Get signed off on the maize.

Invent something amazing and live off the proceeds.

Grow a fucking great horsey face, try to be accepted into a lazy scumbag over-priveledged family and live off the tax/fat of the land. Those fuckers Edward, Charles, Elizabeth etc etc do pretty well.

Nobody really took this question very seriously, did they?

I am interested in people who have done this in some fashion, or know people that have. What worked and what didn't. What did quitting the rat race entail? Anyone ever done it and (really) regretted it?

Also please suggest movies and books about people quitting the rat race. I have seen/read The Mosquito Coast and Off The Grid. Doesn't have to be moving to Central America or New Mexico desert, could maybe be a small town or city, I don't know.

This is for a friend who is interested in this subject and too shy to use the internet.

There are many ways to quit the rat race, but nothing about life is quite as straightforward as that phrase implies. It is never just one decision, or one action, but a profound change of direction that must eventually embrace all the parts of your life.

It can start in very small ways. You don't have to change everything overnight. In fact, the "walk away from your whole life for a fresh start" method is not the one I'd recommend. Better to start with adding skills that can substitute for money, and an applied philosophy of simplification in your relationship to possessions.

Even if you are poor and have few possessions, learn to see them as sufficient, and reduce your desire for more, and newer stuff. Then move on to the earning side of the equation. Look for work, or a way to earn that feels gratifying, instead of merely draining.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Because it takes decades to really nail all this down. I wish you friend luck.

see

Albert Brooks's Lost in America

(regrets aplenty)

I have been in the rat race for less than 2 years, and these questions are already weighing heavily in my mind. Every single part of my life has gotten worse since I got a steady job. I feel so terribly unsatisfied. The most interesting part of the day is choosing which album to listen to on the way into work that will most beautifully reflect the awful dystopian view of everything that I've developed. My relationship with my s.o. has deteriorated, and it's mostly my fault because I'm just fucking BORING now. I bore myself, just with my everyday thoughts. It's boring to listen to, especially when you can't get away from it. At night I can't sleep and I just think about work because that's really the only area where things are happening, even if they're negative things.

waaaah

The thing is, my student loan debt is so monumental - I'm actually PAYING for this horrible situation! - that I don't really have the option of quitting my job.

youre a rad dude & your work has value

skills that can substitute for money

WANT

that sounds awful. imo you should take the feedback of those shitty feelings that your job is creating in you very seriously. the fact that you feel that it's affecting your relationship, your sleeping patterns really sucks. you shouldn't have to be consistently miserable, i think

it may sound counter-intuitive what with the heavy student loan debt, but do you imagine that you'd be happier if you were immersed in doing school stuff again? or is it possible to make your work schedule lighter or find an employment situation with less hours? i realize you don't want to have the burden of the loans hanging over you forever or feel like they are getting worse, but at the same time you can't let it dominate your life and rob you of your ease of mind, happiness

What he said, Z S. I too have monumental student loans, enough to buy a small house! Sometimes they bother me, but whatevs, I just got out of grad school and they're in forbearance right now. Aimless' advice is kind of good but the "get out of debt" part is simply not an option for me. All I can do is manage it, which I have come to accept. I still don't think I have to give up "happiness" for it and going back to school was very helpful in so many ways.