An endless, pointless and self-destructive chase after an unreachable goal. That is the rat race. The definition compares people to rats that try in vain to reach a reward. The cheese. Intoxicating success, which often takes the form of money, wealth and financial freedom!
🎓 Did you know? The term rat race also refers to the competitive struggle for financial gain or career promotion.
I broke free from the rat race only a year ago. But I managed it! I am ready to share my story with you. In my case, it was an exhausting and monotonous lifestyle that brought me neither joy nor satisfaction.
The only possible solution was a “radical cut”. Take a look at how it went.
💡 Tip: Don’t work yourself to the bone! Get inspired and find out how to start making money online!
Table of contents
The origin of the term rat race, or “Repeat everything after the pilot, or you’ll be flying out!”
Do you get the brilliant pun? A newcomer at flying school had to repeat everything after the pilot, or he got the boot. In short, he was out on his ear. Get it? Flying out, because the pilot… never mind. What matters is that the first mention of the so-called rat race dates back to the 1940s.
Originally, it was a game of “follow the leader”, in which a fighter pilot in training had to copy every manoeuvre (loops, rolls, spins, Immelmann turns and so on) performed by an experienced pilot. From 1945, the phrase took on the meaning of “a competitive struggle”.
The term rat race has also appeared in many novels:
- Rat Race is the title of a 1947 novel by Jay Franklin. It is dedicated “to the few rats in Washington who do not carry briefcases”.
- Philip K. Dick used the phrase “rat race” in his 1954 novella The Last of the Masters, where he wrote: “Maybe,” McLean said quietly, “then we can get out of the rat race. You, me and everyone else. And live like human beings.”
- Jim Bishop used the term rat race in his book The Golden Ham: A Candid Biography of Jackie Gleason, in which he says: “Television is like a rat race. Even if you win, you’re still a rat.”
Getting out of the rat race is not easy. I know that only too well. From unsatisfying pay cheques to toxic workplaces, nobody wants to sacrifice their life climbing a ladder that leads nowhere. Besides, we are not just some foolish rats. We are clever beings and can achieve anything we set our minds to. Let this story help you find out how to escape the rat race once and for all.
I ran the rat race so hard that I broke down!
Finding a job after university was supposed to be a breeze. After all, a university graduate doesn’t sit at home waiting for a miracle. She actively looks for work and succeeds within a month at most.
That wasn’t how it went for me. Nobody could accuse me of being lazy, quite the opposite. Every day I spent hours on job portals, frantically sending out CVs. At first only for positions that matched my qualifications. After six months of waiting in vain, I could forget about my pride.
🎓 Did you know? I even applied for jobs as a shop assistant. That’s how stuck in a loop I was.
What should have been easy suddenly became an insurmountable obstacle. Where was I supposed to go? I felt like an extra item on a list that nobody knew where to put. I was desperate and frustrated. My day looked something like this:
- Get up in the morning. Check emails. Just in case someone had replied to an application.
- Refresh the job portals. Send out a few more CVs.
- Lower my expectations. Who am I to choose where I will or won’t work?
- Contact adverts for positions far below my level of qualification.
- Sink into deeper and deeper despair when they didn’t take me on even there.
- THE MORE FRUSTRATED I GOT, THE LONGER I SPENT BROWSING CAREER PORTALS.
I accepted a job that didn’t suit me. The rat race could happily carry on!
I wanted a job so desperately that I ended up working at a betting shop. From the start, I knew it wasn’t for me. But I HAD to stick it out. Because where else would they take me, right?
🗣️ My motto back then was: I need money. At any cost.
I lasted exactly three months. Then I handed in my notice. And after my notice period was over, I had a mental breakdown. Paradoxically, though, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It gave me the time and space to rethink my life goals.
I finally understood what the rat race is. That it is an exhausting routine of trading “a happy life for money”. People in the rat race keep slaving away with no prospect of success or an end to their suffering. Most of them work for business owners and investors in return for minimal pay and recognition.
Why did I need so desperately to break free from the rat race? So that I could start living again!
Sixty days after my breakdown, I was able to look at things from a distance. I had made lots of mistakes without realising it. I had placed an elusive goal above my own life. I was merely surviving: not sleeping, barely eating, not having fun, not relaxing and hardly ever smiling. I just slogged away… to this day I have no idea what for. I had lost all motivation.
I realised that I had to get out of it. Why? Because…
…I was living from pay cheque to pay cheque!
Almost 99% of the world’s population is either poor or middle class. And that means a large part of the world should start doing something, because it is stuck in the rat race, probably without even realising it.
Imagine you get paid every week, but there is never enough money to cover all your expenses.
- Your mortgage or rent eats up more than a third of your salary.
- Then there is food and medicine.
- Then utilities.
- Plus property tax.
- Add a bit of everyday life to that: a wedding, birthday parties, a funeral or losing your job.
- On top of that, you have to pay the tax office.
So most of your salary never ends up in your pocket, because expenses swallow it straight away. THAT is the rat race: not earning enough money to cover your basic needs!
…I had no idea what work-life balance meant!
Life is short. Do you really want to spend 40 hours a week (for the next thirty to forty years) working? Wouldn’t you rather spend time with friends and family? Pursue your hobbies? Or create something meaningful?
Having a job makes life more meaningful, as it gives us a reason to get out of bed in the morning. But it is far more pleasant to have the freedom to choose how we live it. Many billionaires, for example, go to work every day. But for them it is a choice, not a necessity. When we escape the rat race, we will be able to make that choice too.
…I was slaving away for others and getting no recognition!
Every day was the same as the last:
- At 7:00 the alarm went off.
- Even though my work didn’t start until 9:00, I went into the office early. To catch up on work my colleagues had left undone.
- I go to work exhausted and fed up, because I know I will spend the next eight hours working to make everyone around me richer than me.
- The CEO has just bought his third house in Hawaii.
- And I was wondering whether spending 100 CZK (about 4.6 USD) on a McDonald’s breakfast meal was a waste of money.
- By 11:00 my perfectionist boss has already hinted three times that “I’m not good enough”.
- By 14:00 I have sat through hours of meetings that led nowhere.
- At 16:00 I check the time every five minutes to see when it will finally be five o’clock. Because I would rather be anywhere else.
- Then it dawns on me that today is only Monday. I’ll have to go through this torment four more times!
And that is why everyone should try to escape the rat race quickly! I’ll show you how in the next chapter.
3 simple tricks to get out of the rat race, we deserve more for less!
Escaping the rat race means something different to everyone. For me, it meant an end to job hunting (and to going to a traditional job) and creating my own job opportunity. I wanted to stop depending on other people’s goodwill. I made the decision to start living my own life. Slow living, which had always been my goal.
🎓 Did you know? For others, escaping the rat race means retiring early.
For someone else, it might mean freelance contract work instead of a regular job. Escaping the rat race also includes work that pays less but is more fulfilling. Or, on the contrary, an extremely well-paid, stressful job that you only do part-time.
For many women, escaping the rat race means:
- Freedom and the chance to work from wherever they like,
- Freedom to build a successful financial future,
- A sustainable work-life balance,
- Freedom to work and raise children without losing their minds,
- The opportunity to get rich “for themselves” rather than making someone else rich.
Whatever your escape from the rat race looks like, know that you are not alone. There are many ways to get out of it. It is just a matter of finding the one that suits you.
#1, Write down your goals!
Escaping the rat race means you choose the less explored path and set off along it. However, this can be quite scary and intimidating. If you want to escape once and for all, you need to know why.
🗣️ My advice: Write down your goals. Even the tiny and seemingly unimportant ones!
Wherever you put them up, make sure you can see them from anywhere. They will be your motivation, which you need for your everyday decisions. Do you want to start a business? Great! It is time to find out how to do it.
#2, Cut your spending!
Tracking your spending will show you a lot about how you could cut it. If you can reduce your spending, you will escape the rat race much faster and more easily. And it does not even have to be painful. In today’s world, many people are drawn into the worst form of the rat race by loans. A loan is nothing bad if you are taking out a mortgage on a house or a business loan to start a promising business. However, the widespread consumer loans and credit, where people borrow for holidays, parties and consumer electronics, are a really bad habit.
🗣️ My advice: Sometimes it is enough to think more creatively or spend more time planning your spending.
For example, try:
- Looking for ways to save money.
- Using coupons and not turning your nose up at discounts.
- Automating your savings (even tiny amounts count),
- Cutting your food bill by shopping online (so you avoid impulse purchases) and
- Buying generic brands instead of luxury ones.
#3, Invest!
As Kyiosaki says: You cannot escape the rat race unless you invest your money in something that earns you more of it!
The biggest mistake people often make is that they spend all their savings in an emergency. But there is a certain pile of money you should not touch. Instead, you need to let it earn interest and let your money work for you! The second common mistake Czechs make is leaving their money sitting in a bank account, where it loses value due to inflation. Simply put, we do not understand investing very well and we invest less than, for example, Germans or Americans.
🗣️ My advice: Money should be used only to earn more money and, to a limited extent, to meet short-term needs.
You can invest in a new business, in the stock market, put part into cryptocurrencies or into property. Bear in mind that there is a risk in all three cases. The stock market can crash. Property values do not always rise, and property needs to be maintained. A business can go bust. Despite this, investing is a smart move. What is more, today it is easier than ever to start investing even from your mobile phone, thanks to many investment platforms.
When it comes to investing, start small! Do not throw your life savings into one option. Before making a financial commitment, do your research and learn a little about what it involves. Check out investment platforms and find out what each of them can do. This way you reduce the risk of investing badly. And as a bonus, you have a chance to escape the rat race.
💡 Tip: Calculate the return on your investment!
USD amounts are approximate, converted at the Czech National Bank rate of 21.75 CZK per USD on 9 October 2026.
