The holiday season is my favorite time to take a step back, reflect on the accomplishments of the past year, and get excited about what’s to come in the new year.
Spending quality time with friends and family, traveling, and making memories remind me why I’m working so hard and how grateful I am for the life I have.
It motivates me to continue chasing my vision of a rich life and avoid getting caught up in the rat race.
The same rat race that keeps high-income earners living paycheck to paycheck in jobs they hate, to buy things they don’t really need, in order to impress people who don’t really matter.
The victims of the rat race slowly drift through their lives chasing more money without taking the time to understand their true priorities and the opportunity cost of their decisions.
They sacrifice precious time, relationships, and their dreams along the way. Their golden handcuffs wrapped tightly around their wrists.
Always ask yourself: what are you chasing?
The only reason you should be working extremely hard today is so you don’t have to tomorrow.
Don’t get sucked into the endless chase for more without a defined purpose or end goal.
The American Banker and Mexican Fisherman
This is a classic parable that I heard years ago which made me realize the way to win the rat race is to understand your priorities in life, and unapologetically chase after them.
It goes something like this:
An American Banker was taking a much-needed vacation in a small Mexican beach town when he spotted a Mexican Fisherman docking his little boat, carrying the fresh catches of the day.
The Banker was impressed with the size of the fish and asked the fisherman how long it took to catch them.
The Fisherman replied, “Holá señor. It only took an hour.”
The Banker then asked why he didn’t stay out longer to catch more fish.
The Fisherman replied he didn’t need to because he caught enough to support his family’s needs.
The Banker then asked the Fisherman what he does with all his free time.
The Fisherman replied:
“I go to bed late, wake up when I want, fish a little, play with my kids, take a siesta with my wife, stroll into town each evening where I drink beer and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and very busy life, señor.”
The Banker scoffed and said “I have a Harvard MBA and can help you get rich. You should spend more time fishing and sell the extra fish to buy a bigger boat, then use the money you make from the bigger boat to buy more boats until eventually, you have a whole fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your fish in your village, you should sell directly to the fish processor and eventually open your own cannery. You could control the product, processing, and distribution.”
Then the Banker added: “There’s a catch. If you want to get rich, you would need to leave this small beach town and move to Mexico City, and eventually New York City, where you would run your growing company as the CEO.”
The Fisherman then asked, “That sounds great. But señor, how long will this all take?”
To which the Banker replied, “About 20 years.”
“But then what?” asked the Fisherman.
The Banker laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right I will help you IPO and sell your company’s stock to the public market and make us very rich. You will be a millionaire.”
“Wow. A millionaire, señor? Then what?” said the Fisherman.
To which the Banker replied:
“Then you could retire. You could move to a small beach town where you can sleep late, wake up whenever you want, fish a little, play with your kids, take naps with your wife, stroll into town in the evenings where you could drink beer and play your guitar with your friends.”
Moral of the story: the rat race is a futile chase for “more” at the expense of the things that truly matter in your life.
The Fisherman understands his priorities in life: his family, his friends, and himself. He intentionally spends his valuable time on those things today, without sacrificing 20 years of his time chasing what he doesn’t need.
Appreciate What You Have Before It’s Gone
We rarely appreciate what we have until it’s gone. That goes for our health, our relationships, and each chapter of our lives.
The irony is the Fisherman already had the life the Banker was offering. He beat the rat race by having self-awareness that his “full and very busy life” included everything he truly needed to be fulfilled:
- “I go to bed late and wake up when I want” is the freedom of his time.
- “Fish a little” is freedom to work when he wants and how he wants.
- “Play with my kids and take a siesta with my wife” is spending quality time with family and loved ones.
- “Stroll into town each evening where I drink beer and play guitar with my amigos” is having hobbies and time with friends.
Those who have never thought about what they are chasing in life will fall victim to the Banker’s enticing offer, only to end up wasting years of their lives in pursuit of more money.
It’s important to recognize the Banker wants a similar life of freedom and fulfillment, but he’s blinded by the rat race mentality and sees more money as the only way to achieve it.
Most of the things we need to live a happy and fulfilling life doesn’t require more money, but it does require us to understand our priorities. If we take the time to think about the important things in life, we may find that we already have most of them today! We just have to choose to appreciate them today.
Everything in life is a choice. As we learned from the Fisherman, we have the choice to ignore the life that others want us to live. We have the choice to not run in anyone else’s rat race. We have the choice to live a life true to ourselves.
Run Your Own Race
Again, it’s important to understand what you are chasing in life. Your limited time should always be used with a purpose.
You can beat the rat race by understanding your priorities, ignoring everyone else, and choosing to run your own race. There’s no one stopping you.
You do not need more money before you can live a rich life.
Your mindset is much more important than money for living a happy and fulfilling life.
While a rich man may have money, his life fulfillment will be worse if he sacrifices the things that truly matter to him along the way.
He might have neglected quality time with his loved ones by convincing himself that he is “working hard now to earn more money in order to have more quality time with them in the future.”
Sadly, this causes him to lose out on the very life he’s sacrificing so much to achieve.
We can all learn a few valuable life lessons from the story of the Banker and the Fisherman.
If we spent more time on ourselves today, prioritizing the things that truly matter to us, instead of waiting until a distant tomorrow, we could start living our best lives today.
You can’t lose if you choose to run your own race.