As above really…Its shite and our common antidote is off road cycling or mtbing if you prefer. There must be more to life than chasing the last quid to purchase more shite we dont actually need…..please comment (op may have had a beer or three)

life is good…………embrace it.

What day to day rat race?

I have a great life.

No day to day rat race here either.

you need a new job stumpy………………
earn enough to live mate………….learn to live on less, and work less.
simples.

You can be winner in the rat race…. or a loser!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2zRdigbnxs&feature=fvst[/video]

No rat race here either – ruddy skint tho

Never trust a hippy.

earn enough to live mate………….learn to live on less, and work less.

This is my philosophy. And I like my job and feel as though I am doing something worthwhile. Don’t earn much but I can still afford to do stuff.

earn enough to live mate………….learn to live on less, and work less.

Mine too, and as soon as I adopted it I found I had plenty of money and plenty of time.

So in answer to your question it appears that we do it because actually we all love our lives.

Seems you need a career change or a rethink Stumps.

I can’t help but think my life is a tad different to your life. Find a dream then chase it 😀

people do it because they choose to

because they think they have to

but they don’t

there are alternative ways to live

I get you stumps. Don’t get me wrong, life is going pretty well for me at the moment…but that said there does seem to be something going on where we are ‘judged’ by what we HAVE rather than who we ARE or even what we DO.

druidh – Member
What day to day rat race?
I have a great life.

smugness isn’t difficult. Would you have said this before you retired?

Yep.

I had a good job, which I enjoyed. It paid well. I have a lovely wife and daughter. I got lots of time for doing stuff I wanted as well as time with my family.

I also took decisions in my career which meant turning down extra money, opting for security instead of temporary wealth. I also opted not to chase the dream of a bigger house and the flashiest car I could afford.

Choices, innit?

Edit: And I’m officially not retired as I have a job.

Power to ya.

I don’t do rat racing, I’ve got a somewhat interesting, but undemanding (for me) job which suits me fairly well when the company’s not exploding in some amusing way, I clock in at 9 and I leave at 5 and though I stress at work sometimes I put that in my drawer when I leave. I could- maybe should- be making a lot more money and working up the career ladder, just choosing not to. Life isn’t hard…

Rat racing is ace!

work to live, not live to work….

i agree, our priorities are all skewiff. too many people are chasing material possessions (i know the irony of this as we ride around on our expensive bikes)

i’m skint, but it’s through choice. i choose not to have a stessful job that involves lots of working hours and responsibility. consequently i currently have no job, but am happy.

If you’re all so happy with your lives, why do you all bitch and whine and moan on here so much then?

coz i got nowt else to do…. (see above).

don’t watch the news or read any newspapers, they all put their spin on it, trying to make a story out of nothing, ignore it and you’ll have a happier life.

I’m not sure that most people do judge others by what they have. While this may have been true in an earlier status driven era, this is much less so now when demonstrable savvy counts for more. The problem lies in trying to sustain a life in a place that does not sustain you. Is it viable for the OP to consider moving?

I’m afraid that I completely agree with stumpy. work’s bloomin awful and mega stressful. I’ve already had to some serious re balancing with the life work routine to try and dodge depression/work related stress but that’s still lurking, some days are getting better through which is nice. A mortgage and young family mean that there is no utopian mince off and live life like a hippy on a low paid/less sh*te job. The only things that have kept me going are riding bikes as much as work and family commitments allow and the fact that I’m lookin for a new job,which in my field of work/level is not a quick turnround item, but it keeps me sane(ish) thinking that I won’t have to put up with this sh1t for much longer.

The thing that really gets me is that you see our children being turned into little consumers by society as fast as possible to feed the machine and keep it turning.

*puts soapbox away and gets ready for a day of shite* 😥

Cheers Tony,Taz and all you other good guys on here. I wasn’t really bitching, just looking for other peoples slant on things. I have loads of good things in my life and a really great set of biking buddies its just well you know sometimes you think there must be a better way for us all to live out the limited time we have on this little planet…….

Working your butt off in a stressed environment, hardly seeing your kids and chasing that last pound so you can buy that holiday in Florida or that 50″ TV – WHY?! It’s all about keeping up with the Joneses.

If work is hateful, do something else. See more of your family, do more outdoors stuff – the rat race seems to be the norm for 90% of the population and I can’t see why.

When you look back will you remember an epic coast to coast MTB ride, a great surf or a fantastic time with your family (which can be had in the UK) or will you remember slaving to earn that extra bit of cash to pay for some pointless upgrade to your bike/home/whatever?

It’s handy not being skint but a life in pursuit of money is pointless, selfish and incredibly dull. Yet for some reason most of the population of Britain seems to pursue it.

‘When you look back ‘

I just see loads more rats?

tazzymtb – Member

A mortgage and young family mean that there is no utopian mince off and live life like a hippy on a low paid/less sh*te job

Of course the option is still there. People do manage to bring children up on low incomes. But you have to accept the compromises it entails.

It’s handy not being skint but a life in pursuit of money is pointless, selfish and incredibly dull. Yet for some reason most of the population of Britain seems to pursue it.

I thought I was the only one that thought this.

My lifestyle choice was forced on me by redundancy, and with the time to reflect without work worries cramming my every waking moment it was a very good thing.

I’m glad I had an opportunity to step off the merry-go-round and look at how shabby it is from the outside.

work/life ballance is incredibly important to to, and something thats very easy to forget when you work in care.

been offered the chance to up my pay by 15k a year and my job role wouldn’t change much at all… but what it would mean is that i’d be on call 24/7 and that it would be me thats held accountable for the work of others and the stupid decisions made my head office.. at the moment when i leave work i ignore my mobile and its the MD that gets it in the neck when something gos wrong.

initially i turned down the payrise because of my commitments but now they’re gone i’m very happy i made that choice. as long as i can pay the bills i’m happy, its nice to have spare cash to buy things, its nice to be able to save, but i was just as happy/happier in a way when i took a break from nursing to deliver shopping for tescos for near minimum wage.

riding a bike in the woods away from traffic noise, hearing only the sound of nature and your wheels rolling though it is blissful, concentrating on your line through singletrack you have to focus on… turning your mind off from everything bad in the world, its beautiful and i often wonder why people come on stw to moan about the world when they could be out on a bike forgetting about it 🙂

We made what we thought was going to be a lifestyle decision a couple of years or so back- my wife went back to work, looking for short term contracts with the idea that she’d work hard for 6-8 months a year, and we’d have a decent life the rest of the time.
Unfortunately she took on some work that now has an end date in early 2012, and she’s already been on it for 12 months- no real holiday in that time, and long hours with lots of stress.

We’ve got the money we wanted, but not the means to use it how we want to- travel was our only real luxury, and we wanted to be able to spend the time with our kids before we got too old, and they grew up.
We’re now finding that there’s a real temptation to waste the money on material things we don’t need or want as some sort of compensation 😕

I joke about, but I can echo a lot of the sentiments on here.
Still reasonably young, but have pushed myself hard to get where I am in my career.
In search of the flasher car, bigger pay check etc, I took a job with a well known Japanses manufacturer and endured 7 months of hell there…
16 hour days.
Never allowed to turn work mobile off.
Answering calls any time of the day including when taking girlfriend out for her birthday.
No time for the gym or cycling.
No time for STW.
No time for anything except work.

I jacked it in, took a bit of a pay-cut, handed back my flash car and chose happiness, flexi-time, full nights sleep, I chose my physical and mental well being.
F~ck ever doing that again. The money isn’t worth sh1t if you dread going to work everyday!

handed back my flash car and chose happiness, flexi-time, full nights sleep, I chose my physical and mental well being.
F~ck ever doing that again. The money isn’t worth sh1t if you dread going to work everyday!

<samual l jackson voice> My man! </samual l jackson voice>

.

TSY – I love the priorities there – “No time for STW” 😆

I know a few ex city traders, some worked for Goldman Sachs and one still works for UBS. Clearly their employers earn a fortune BUT they don’t half own their entire lives.

They demand to know exactly where you are when on holiday in case they need to contact you (top traders will have a private jet flown out to them in an emergency!!), any time off is frowned upon, people go in on their days off because they are worried they might lose out on a deal, etc, etc. No time to exercise, lots of boozing with work and that’s about it.

Is ending up with a small (or large) fortune worth throwing away what I consider the “prime” years of your life (aged 30-45ish)? Not in my opinion.

Right, time to do some work…

Taxes = pay for services & the vulnerable (do we want to be like the US?).

Work = pays for high standard of living, mtbs etc.

earn enough to live mate………….learn to live on less, and work less.
simples.

Anyone wanting more is deluded by grandeur shirley..?

The other point of view.

I’ve tried to do the downshifting route, doing a job that was less demanding and paid me considerably less than before. I was utterly and totally bored. So now I’m back doing a job which requires a minimum 60-hour week, and for which the Blackberry is never switched off. I manage just under 200 people across the world, and have all manner of stress.

I absolutely love it; I can manage my own time, where I work, and whether or not I delegate work or do it myself. I get very well paid in return, and rarely need to work weekends, though calls and emails come in at unexpected times.

Most people really wouldn’t want to do my job, and I have a fair number of comments to that effect. Fair enough, but this is what I’m good at, and almost anything else leaves me unfulfilled. The kids see a little less of me than they did before, but they see a happy dad for 2 hours a day rather than a grumpy one for 3. Probably a trade most people would agree to, and certainly one my wife and kids seem happy with.

And it does mean that the material things (like going skiing with the kids several times a year and doing lots of things such as white water rafting in the summer) can be afforded. It’s also nice to think that if I work hard for the next 10 years I can retire at any time after that.

stumpy………..most important mate, keep your chin up.
dont let it get you down at all.