Can I Free Myself from the Rat Race?

I’ve been chasing the wrong goals, ones impregnated into my mind (that are not mine), for too long. Led by a selection of influences:

• Our broken society, dictated by bygone eras — the industrial age, baby boomers and a housing market that was accessible for new buyers once upon a time.
• Friends, people that love me and want to see me thrive — but project their ideas of happiness onto me, and if my ideas do not match theirs, they believe I am making the wrong moves in my life.
• Family, more people that love me but have said things in the past that have made me feel like I should be living a certain way. Keen to see me fly the nest and create a family before a certain age, as they did, and anxious to see my future family before they become too old to enjoy it fully. I want this too, but I’ve got to look after my own future first.
• A broken system that’s had me believe that what I needed to be happy was moving out of my parents’ home into my own flat, into the city. To get a new car, [and instantly] get a relationship because I was ‘proven responsible and self-reliant’. I could then get a high status executive job to match my career progression & skill set, and be ‘happily ever after’.
• Pressure on myself to prove myself worthy of a romantic relationship and a status comparable to other people’s. Illusions, superficial and insecure pressures to try and control things that really just happen when the circumstances naturally become right.

Pressuring myself into trying to change my circumstances to find a relationship, or achieve a sense of freedom through living alone, has been stupid.

I’ve self-sabotaged, knowing in fact there are things more important to me at the moment, the things (I now realise) are my foundations of happiness.

Now I realise what gap years are all about. Only in being unemployed, have I awoken to the reasons I’ve been self-sabotaging and not moving forward with my own projects and ambitions with the grit needed to monetise for so long, because only now, whilst I can do them, I realise the things I need to truly feel content and happy personally:

• The ability to have studio sessions and make music to express myself, whenever I feel like it. Doing this only at a dedicated time makes it very difficult to dedicate to something artistically.
• The ability to grow my own business and work towards what I consider my purpose in life, undiluted by building somebody else’s dream simultaneously.
• To be able to exercise in the evening without being burnt out from the day ahead.
• Reading and letting my imagination run wild.
• Writing my thoughts down creatively.

Now that I can do these things; I feel happy, relaxed and full of energy everyday.

Part of me still feels like I’m failing at being self-reliant and ‘mature’ all the time my parents are putting a roof over my head.

But, at 28 years old in the UK, I know I’m far from being in my own boat.

If I’m going to eventually succeed with my mission in music, I need the dedicated time and freedom to do so. If this means I have to live at home for another year so that I can work less for other people, so be it.

Now that I know what the baseline needs are in my life, I’ve straightened my priorities accordingly.

I only need to generate a relatively modest income to survive, and the freedom and time to work on my own business that freelancing could provide gives me ability to scale that without the pressure of immediate high outgoings.

I don’t feel like I need to prove myself by moving out now. I feel more responsible by putting my lifetime passion first, at the expense of my own home — some people don’t get that opportunity, I’m becoming more grateful for it (although in ways it’s a pain in the arse).

As far as a new romantic relationship is concerned, I’m a better person for putting my passions first and living fully building my own business than trying to find a partner whilst I’m unsatisfied. Friends have told me not to let work stop me having a life, referring partly to romance, this advice isn’t going to be one I’ll follow. My work is my happiness.

This idea of a need to be employed is still mainstream.

They will tell you that you should feel fine in a working lifestyle and if you’re stressed it’s because you’re not doing it right.

They will say that you should improve your perspective of work/life balance, that you need to spend more time on your hobbies, with family and in nature and then never disclosing where this time comes from.

They will tell you that work is good for the soul.

But if you’re a creative, and your fulfilment from your creative efforts towards a commercial purpose is not enough, they will suck you dry until you are soulless and depressed.

I’m still on the wall though. Even being self-employed doesn’t necessarily have to happen for me right now. I don’t have to be in a rush for my life to be perfect. 🍑🍑

The benefits I’m feeling from doing my own thing, they can wait if I have the right opportunity as an employee. I’m still seeking an employed job in the music industry. — I still feel that this is still going to aid me and tremendously in setting the foundations for my self-employed mission further down the line.

Right now I’m selectively applying to jobs that truly speak to me as the right opportunity. Meanwhile, I’m going to start finding ways to ‘hustle’ an income with freelancing and the like.

One thing is for sure, I’m never going back to ‘the grind’ of doing work that isn’t in the music industry.

Another sure thing: I am never going to put myself in a position where I can’t fulfil my basic needs for happiness.

I’d die trying to stay out of those situations.