Step Off the Hamster Wheel: Choose Time Over Things
I wake up every morning to perform enthusiasm for work that slowly kills my soul, spending eight hours earning money to buy things that promise to fill the emptiness created by spending eight hours doing work that slowly kills my soul. This is the hamster wheel economy: running faster and faster to afford the lifestyle that compensates for the life I’m not living.
The mathematics are insane but culturally normalized: I work at a job I hate to buy a car I don’t need to drive to a job I hate to buy clothes I don’t want to wear to a job I hate to impress people I don’t like so they’ll think I’m successful at a job I hate.
Each purchase is supposed to be a down payment on happiness, a small investment in the person I’ll become when I finally have enough things to feel complete. The watch will make me feel successful. The house will make me feel secure. The vacation will make me feel free. The clothes will make me feel confident.
But accumulation is a drug that requires increasing doses to maintain the same effect. The temporary high of acquisition fades quickly, leaving behind only the permanent weight of more stuff to maintain, insure, upgrade, and eventually replace with newer stuff that promises to deliver the satisfaction the old stuff failed to provide.
Meanwhile, I’m outsourcing my time—the only irreplaceable resource I have—to fund a lifestyle that requires me to outsource my time. I’m trapped in a closed loop where the solution to feeling empty from work is buying things that require more work to afford, where the cure for meaninglessness is consumption that creates demand for more meaningless work.
The people I’m trying to impress are trapped in the same cycle, working jobs they hate to buy things they don’t need to impress people who are too busy working jobs they hate to notice what anyone else is buying. We’re all performing prosperity for an audience of performers, displaying success to people who are too exhausted from pursuing their own displays to pay attention to ours.
What if I stopped trying to impress people I don’t like with things I don’t need bought with money from work I hate? What if I chose a smaller life that required less funding? What if I measured wealth by time available rather than stuff accumulated?
The hamster wheel only works if you keep running. Maybe it’s time to step off and see what happens when you stop confusing motion with progress, acquisition with achievement, having more with being more.